NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The shocking death of a young woman leads Detective Dave Robicheaux into the dark corners of Hollywood, the mafia, and the backwoods of Louisiana in this gripping mystery from “modern master” (Publishers Weekly) James Lee Burke. 

Detective Dave Robicheaux’s world isn’t filled with too many happy stories, but Desmond Cormier’s rags-to-riches tale is certainly one of them. Robicheaux first met Cormier on the streets of New Orleans, when the young, undersized boy had foolish dreams of becoming a Hollywood director.

Twenty-five years later, when Robicheaux knocks on Cormier’s door, it isn’t to congratulate him on his Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Robicheaux has discovered the body of a young woman who’s been crucified, wearing only a small chain on her ankle. She disappeared near Cormier’s Cyrpemort Point estate, and Robicheaux, along with young deputy, Sean McClain, are looking for answers. Neither Cormier nor his enigmatic actor friend Antoine Butterworth are saying much, but Robicheaux knows better.

As always, Clete Purcel and Dave’s daughter, Alafair, have Robicheaux’s back. Clete witnesses the escape of Texas inmate, Hugo Tillinger, who may hold the key to Robicheaux’s case. As they wade further into the investigation, they end up in the crosshairs of the mob, the deranged Chester Wimple, and the dark ghosts Robicheaux has been running from for years. Ultimately, it’s up to Robicheaux to stop them all, but he’ll have to summon a light he’s never seen or felt to save himself, and those he loves.

Stephen King hailed New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke “as good as he ever was.” Now, with The New Iberia Blues, Burke proves that he “remains the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed” (Michael Connelly).

James Lee Burke’s most beloved character, Dave Robicheaux, returns in this gritty, atmospheric mystery set in the towns and backwoods of Louisiana.

DAVE ROBICHEAUX IS A HAUNTED MAN.

Between his recurrent nightmares about Vietnam, his battle with alcoholism, and the sudden loss of his beloved wife, Molly, his thoughts drift from one irreconcilable memory to the next. Images of ghosts at Spanish Lake live on the edge of his vision.

During a murder investigation, Dave Robicheaux discovers he may have committed the homicide he’s investigating, one which involved the death of the man who took the life of Dave’s beloved wife. As he works to clear his name and make sense of the murder, Robicheaux encounters a cast of characters and a resurgence of dark social forces that threaten to destroy all of those whom he loves. What emerges is not only a propulsive and thrilling novel, but a harrowing study of America: this nation’s abiding conflict between a sense of past grandeur and a legacy of shame, its easy seduction by demagogues and wealth, and its predilection for violence and revenge. James Lee Burke has returned with one of America’s favorite characters, in his most searing, most prescient novel to date.

“America’s best novelist” (The Denver Post) and “the reigning champ of nostalgia noir” (The New York Times Book Review) introduces his most evil character yet in the twentieth thriller in the bestselling Dave Robicheaux series.

Sadist and serial killer Asa Surrette narrowly escaped the death penalty for the string of heinous murders he committed while capital punishment was outlawed in Kansas. But following a series of damning articles written by Dave Robicheaux’s daughter Alafair, Surrette escapes from a prison transport van and heads to Montana, where an unsuspecting Dave—along with Alafair; Dave’s wife, Molly; Dave’s faithful partner Clete; and Clete’s newfound daughter, Gretchen Horowitz—have come to take in the sweet summer air.

Surrette may be even worse than Dave’s old enemy Legion Guidry, a man Dave suspected might very well be the devil incarnate. But before Dave can stop Surrette from harming those he loves most, he’ll have to do battle with Love Younger, an enigmatic petrochemical magnate seeking to build an oil pipeline from Alberta to Texas, and Wyatt Dixon, a rodeo clown with a dark past whom Burke fans will recall from his Billy Bob Holland novels.

Says The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), “Already designated a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, Burke should get another title, say, for sustained literary brilliance in his Dave Robicheaux series.” Drawing on real events that took place in Wichita, Kansas, over a twenty-year span, Light of the World is a harrowing novel that examines the nature of evil and pits Dave Robicheaux against the most diabolical villain he has ever faced.

Dave Robicheaux investigates the disappearance of a young Creole woman, while an oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to destroy the cherished beauty of the Louisiana bayous in this gripping thriller.

Set against the events of the Gulf Coast oil spill, rife with “the menaces of greed and violence and man-made horror” (The Christian Science Monitor), Creole Belle finds Dave Robicheaux languishing in a New Orleans recovery unit since surviving a bayou shoot-out. The detective’s body is healing; it’s his morphine-addled mind that conjures spectral visions of Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman who in reality has gone missing. An iPod with an old blues song left by his bedside turns Robicheaux into a man obsessed... And as oil companies assign blame after an epic disaster threatens the Gulf’s very existence, Robicheaux unearths connections between tragedies both global and personal—and faces down forces that can corrupt and destroy the best of men.

“A work of dark and radiant brilliance” (Richmond Times-Dispatch), Creole Belle is “a novel that shows how the sins of the fathers poison the ground their children walk on” (The New York Times Book Review).

Detective Dave Robicheaux becomes entangled in a mystery that connects a series of grisly murders with an ex-convict turned bestselling author, a notorious local pimp, and the man currently dating Robicheaux’s daughter.

On the trail of a killer responsible for the deaths of seven young women in neighboring Jefferson Davis parish, Detective Dave Robicheaux and his best friend Clete Purcel can’t seem to stay away from Herman Stanga, a notorious pimp whose name constantly resurfaces in their investigation, and whom both men despise. When Stanga turns up dead shortly after a fierce beating in front of numerous witnesses at the hands of Clete Purcel, the case takes a nasty turn, and solving the mystery of the Jefferson Davis deaths becomes more important than ever.

Adding to Robicheaux’s troubles is the matter of his adopted daughter, Alafair, on hiatus from Stanford Law for a semester and home in New Iberia to put the finishing touches on her novel. Her literary pursuit has led her into the arms of Kermit Abelard, celebrated novelist and scion of a once-prominent Louisiana family whose fortunes are slowly sinking into the bayous. In Robicheaux’s mind, Abelard’s association with a sleazy ex-convict turned bestselling author named Robert Weingart puts him at the center of some very shady business, and Robicheaux fears he’s taking Alafair down with him. But at the same time he fears for Alafair’s well-being—and possibly her life—she’s becoming more distant toward him, convinced his concerns are just the paranoia of an overprotective father. To protect his daughter and clear his best friend’s name, Robicheaux will need every ounce of guts, wit, and investigative chops he can muster.

From the creator of “one of America’s best mystery series” (Library Journal, starred review), James Lee Burke’s The Glass Rainbow is a “superlative” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) bayou thriller.

Dave Robicheaux, his wife, and his buddy Clete Purcel have retreated to an old friend’s ranch, hoping to spend their days fishing and enjoying their distance from the harsh, gritty landscape of Louisiana post-Katrina. But the serenity is soon shattered when two college students are found brutally murdered in the hills behind where the Robicheauxs and Purcell are staying.

Deftly weaving intricate, engaging plotlines and original, compelling characters with his graceful prose, Burke transcends genre yet again.

Dave Robicheaux returns in an adventure as timely as real life: the fight against crime, and the fight for life in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In the waning days of summer, 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana.

This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As James Lee Burke's new novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city.

In a singular style that defies genre, James Lee Burke has created a hauntingly bleak picture of life in New Orleans after Katrina. Filled with complex characters and depictions of people at both their best and worst, The Tin Roof Blowdown is not only an action-packed crime thriller, but a poignant story of courage and sacrifice that critics are already calling Burke's best work.

Detective Dave Robicheaux is facing the most painful and dangerous case of his career. A troubled young woman breezes into his hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana. She happens to be the daughter of Robicheaux's onetime best friend -- a friend he witnessed gunned down in a bank robbery, a tragedy that forever changed Robicheaux's life.

In Pegasus Descending, James Lee Burke again explores psyches as much as evidence, and tries to make sense of human behavior as well as of his characters' crimes. Richly atmospheric, frightening in its sudden violence, and replete with the sort of puzzles only the best crime fiction creates, Burke's latest novel is an unforgettable roller coaster of passion, surprise, and regret.

The twists begin when Trish Klein -- the only offspring of Robicheaux's Vietnam-era buddy -- starts passing marked hundred-dollar bills in local casinos. Is she a good kid gone bad? A victim's child seeking revenge? A promiscuous beauty seducing everyone good within her grasp? And how does her behavior relate to the apparent suicide of another "good" girl, an ace student named Yvonne Darbonne, who apparently participated in a college frat orgy before her death?

Can Robicheaux make his peace with the demons that have haunted him since his friend's murder so many years ago? Can he figure out how a local mobster fits into all the schemes and deaths? Can Robicheaux's life be whole again when it has been shattered by so much tragedy?

Once again, Burke proves why he is the virtual poet laureate of southern Louisiana, and why his novels, especially those featuring Dave Robicheaux, stand as brilliant literature and entertainment for our time.

Critically acclaimed and bestselling crime writer James Lee Burke returns to Louisiana where his ever-popular hero, Dave Robicheaux, sleuths his way through a hotbed of sin and uncertainty.

For Dave Robicheaux, life in Louisiana is filled with haunting memories of the past -- images from Vietnam, the violent streets of New Orleans, and his own troubled youth. In Crusader's Cross, a deathbed confession from an old schoolmate resurrects a story of injustice, the murder of a young woman, and a time in Robicheaux's life he has tried to forget.

Her name may or may not have been Ida Durbin. It was back in the innocent days of the 1950s when Robicheaux and his brother, Jimmie, met her on a Galveston beach. She was pretty and Jimmie fell for her hard -- not knowing she was a prostitute on infamous Post Office Street, with ties to the mob. Then Ida was abducted and never seen again.

Now, decades later, Robicheaux is asking questions about Ida Durbin, and a couple of redneck deputy sheriffs make it clear that asking questions is a dangerous game. With a series of horrifying murders and the sudden appearance of Valentine Chalons and his sister, Honoria, a disturbed and deeply alluring woman, Robicheaux is soon involved not only with the Chalons family but with the murderous energies of the New Orleans underworld. Also, he meets and finds himself drawn into a scandalous relationship with a remarkable Catholic nun.

Brilliant, brooding, and filled with the author's signature lyricism, Jim Burke's latest novel is a darkly suspenseful work of literature.

For Dave Robicheaux, there is no easy passage home. New Orleans, and the memories of his life in the Big Easy, will always haunt him. So to return there -- as he does in Last Car to Elysian Fields -- means visiting old ghosts, exposing old wounds, opening himself up to new, yet familiar, dangers.

When Robicheaux, now a police officer based in the somewhat quieter Louisiana town of New Iberia, learns that an old friend, Father Jimmie Dolan, a Catholic priest always at the center of controversy, has been the victim of a particularly brutal assault, he knows he has to return to New Orleans to investigate, if only unofficially. What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he is inviting into his life -- and into the lives of those around him -- an ancestral evil that could destroy them all.

The investigation begins innocently enough. Assisted by good friend and P.I. Clete Purcel, Robicheaux confronts the man they believe to be responsible for Dolan's beating, a drug dealer and porno star named Gunner Ardoin. The confrontation, however, turns into a standoff as Clete ends up in jail and Robicheaux receives an ominous warning to keep out of New Orleans' affairs.

Meanwhile, back in New Iberia, more trouble is brewing: Three local teenage girls are killed in a drunk-driving accident, the driver being the seventeen-year-old daughter of a prominent physician. Robicheaux traces the source of the liquor to one of New Iberia's "daiquiri windows," places that sell mixed drinks from drive-by windows. When the owner of the drive-through operation is brutally murdered, Robicheaux immediately suspects the grief-crazed father of the dead teen driver. But his assumption is challenged when the murder weapon turns up belonging to someone else.

The trouble continues when Father Jimmie asks Robicheaux to help investigate the presence of a toxic landfill near St. James Parish in New Orleans, which in turn leads to a search for the truth behind the disappearance many years before of a legendary blues musician and composer. Tying together all these seemingly disparate threads of crime is a maniacal killer named Max Coll, a brutal, brilliant, and deeply haunted hit man sent to New Orleans to finish the job on Father Dolan. Once Coll shows up, it becomes clear that Dave Robicheaux will be forced to ignore the warning to stay out of New Orleans, and he soon finds himself drawn deeper into a viper's nest of sordid secrets and escalating violence that sets him up for a confrontation that echoes down the lonely corridors of his own unresolved past.

A masterful exploration of the troubled side of human nature and the darkest corners of the heart, and filled with the kinds of unforgettable characters that are the hallmarks of his novels, Last Car to Elysian Fields is James Lee Burke in top form in the kind of lush, atmospheric thriller that his fans have come to expect from the master of crime fiction.

When a beautiful teenage girl is killed, the victim of a particularly savage rape, New Iberia, Louisiana, police detective Dave Robicheaux senses from the very start of the investigation that the most likely suspect, Tee Bobby Hulin, is not the actual killer. Though a drug addict and general ne'er-do-well, Hulin just doesn't fit the profile for this kind of brutal crime.

But when another murder occurs -- this victim a drugged-out prostitute who happens to be the daughter of one of the local mafia bigwigs -- all clues once again point to Tee Bobby Hulin, and the cries for arrest become too loud to ignore. The dead girl's father, however, prefers to take matters in his own hands and sets out to find -- and punish -- the killer himself.

But before Robicheaux can solve these crimes and bring the killer or killers to justice, he is forced to battle his own inner demons, including a painkiller addiction, a habit that begins as the result of a brutal and humiliating beating he suffers at the hands of the mysterious and diabolical character known as Legion. A fixture in the area for years, Legion was once the overseer on a local sugarcane plantation and now gets by doing odd jobs. In temperament, however, he's still the malicious and malevolent bully he always was, a man defined by evil and seemingly possessed with supernatural skills of survival.

Added to the mix, and on the good guy side of the balance sheet, is Clete Purcel, a longtime buddy of Robicheaux's and a confirmed boozer and womanizer. Clete comes to New Iberia for a visit and is quickly drawn into the struggle between the various forces of evil in the town, including Jimmy Dean Styles, a black man intent on maintaining his empire of corruption; Joe Zeroski, a trailer park mafioso with palatial aspirations -- and of course, Legion Guidry, the devil incarnate, in whom Robicheaux finds himself facing a challenge and an enemy unlike any he has ever known. And soon, what began as a duel of wits has turned into a dance of death.

Gothic, dense, brutal, touching, and always compelling, Jolie Blon's Bounce is classic storytelling from a writer who has been dubbed "the Faulkner of crime fiction."

Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass onto the son. But what has his mother's legacy left him? Dead to him since youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Dave's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of his whiskey-driven father. But deep down, he still feels the loss of his mother and knows the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.

While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory's boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area.

Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son. PURPLE CANE ROAD has the dimensions of a classic-passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy-wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.

The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn’t crucify Megan Flynn’s father. They just didn’t catch whoever pinned him to a barn wall with sixteen-penny nails.

Decades later, Megan, now a world-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking for cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave who found the body of labor leader Jack Flynn. The sight changed the boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarre unsolved slaying.

Now Megan’s return has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a storm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites in this bayou country. And for a good cop with bad memories, hard desire, and chilling nightmares, the time has come to uncover the truth.

Aaron Crown comes from a long line of shady Cajun characters, and rumors of Klan ties swirl around his family—so his arrest for the murder of a black civil rights leader would seem to be an open and shut case. But when the man who worked hardest to put Crown away ascends to the governor’s mansion, detective Dave Robicheaux begins to suspect that Aaron may be innocent of the crime. Soon key figures in high places start pressuring Dave to drop his investigation…but that only makes him more determined to uncover the truth at any cost.

The Fontenot family has lived as sharecroppers on Bertrand land for as long as anyone can remember. So why are they now being forced from their homes? And what does the murder of Della Landry—the girlfriend of New Orleans fixer Sonny Boy Marsallus—have to do with it?

Marsallus’s secrets seem tied to those of the Fontenots. But can Detective Dave Robicheaux make sense of it all before more bodies drop? In James Lee Burke’s intense and powerful crime novel, Robicheaux digs deep into the bad blood and dirty secrets of Louisiana’s past—while confronting a ragtag alliance of local mobsters and a hired assassin.

In the suspenseful series that continues to be both a critical and popular success, Burning Angel will keep you glued to the pages until the ­­­breathtaking finale.

It’s out there, under the salt of the Gulf of Mexico, off the Louisiana coast—a buried Nazi submarine. Detective Dave Robicheaux of the New Iberia Sheriff’s office has known of its existence since childhood, when he was terrified by nightmares of the evil Nazi sailors just offshore. Then, as a teenager he stumbled upon the sunken sub while scuba diving—but for years he kept the secret of its watery grave.

But decades later, a powerful Jewish activist wants the sub raised, and Robicheaux’s knowledge puts him at the center of a terrifying struggle of conflicting desires. A neo-Nazi psychopath named Will Buchalter, who insists that the Holocaust was a hoax, wants to find the submarine first—and he’ll stop at nothing to get Robicheaux to talk.

With colorful characters, flawless plotting, and devilishly clever dialogue, Dixie City Jam is a spine-tingling suspense novel you won’t want to miss!

When Hollywood invades New Iberia Parish to film a Civil War epic, restless specters waiting in the shadows for Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux are reawakened—ghosts of a history best left undisturbed. Hunting a serial killer preying on the lawless young, Robicheaux comes up close and personal with the elusive guardians of his darkest torments—who hold the key to his ultimate salvation…or a final, fatal downfall.

In this “entertaining, satisfying, thought-provoking” (The Baltimore Sun) Dave Robicheaux mystery, James Lee Burke explores new narrative territory with qualified success, leading his Cajun detective into a series of dreamlike encounters with a troop of Confederate soldiers under General John Bell Hood.

For years, critics have acclaimed the power of James Lee Burke's writing, the luminosity of his prose, the psychological complexity of his characters, the richness of his landscapes. Over the course of twenty novels and one collection of short stories, he has developed a loyal and dedicated following among both critics and general readers. His thrillers, featuring either Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux or Billy Bob Holland, a hardened Texas-based lawyer, have consistently appeared on national bestseller lists, making Burke one of America's most celebrated authors of crime fiction.

Now, in a startling and brilliantly successful departure, Burke has written a historical novel -- an epic story of love, hate, and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

At the center of the novel are James Lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from a slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willie Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite their personal and political conflicts with the issues of the time, both men join the Confederate Army, choosing to face ordeal by fire, yet determined not to back down in their commitment to their moral beliefs, to their friends, and to the abolitionist woman with whom both have become infatuated.

One of the most compelling characters in the story, and the catalyst for much of its drama, is Flower Jamison, a beautiful young black slave befriended, at great risk to himself, by Willie and owned by -- and fathered by, although he will not admit it -- Ira Jamison. Owner of Angola Plantation, Ira Jamison is a true son of the Old South and also a ruthless businessman, who, after the war, returns to the plantation and re-energizes it by transforming it into a penal colony, which houses prisoners he rents out as laborers to replace the slaves who have been emancipated.

Against all local law and customs, Flower learns from Willie to read and write, and receives the help and protection of Abigail Dowling, a Massachusetts abolitionist who had come south several years prior to help fight yellow fever and never left, and who has attracted the eye of both Willie and Robert Perry. These love affairs are not only fraught with danger, but compromised by the great and grim events of the Civil War and its aftermath.

As in all of Burke's writings, White Doves at Morning is full of wonderful, colorful, unforgettable villains. Some, like Clay Hatcher, are pure "white trash" (considered the lowest of the low, they were despised by the white ruling class and feared by former slaves). From their ranks came the most notorious of the vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League and the Knights of the White Camellia. Most villainous of all, though, are the petty and mean-minded Todd McCain, owner of New Iberia's hardware store, and the diabolically evil Rufus Atkins, former overseer of Angola Plantation and the man Jamison has placed in charge of his convict labor crews.

Rounding out this unforgettable cast of characters are Carrie LaRose, madam of New Iberia's house of ill repute, and her ship's-captain brother Jean-Jacques LaRose, Cajuns who assist Flower and Abigail in their struggle to help the blacks of the town.

With battle scenes at Shiloh and in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia that no reader will ever forget, and set in a time of upheaval that affected all men and all women at all levels of society, White Doves at Morning is an epic worthy of America's most tragic conflict, as well as a book of substance, importance, and genuine originality, one that will undoubtedly come to be regarded as a masterpiece of historical fiction.

Detective Dave Robicheaux travels to the mountains of Montana to help his best friend and unearths a larger plot that threatens them both. Oil speculator Weldon Sonnier is the patriarch of a troubled family intimately bound to the CIA, the Mob, and the Klan. Now, the murder of a cop and a bizarre assassination attempt pull Detective Dave Robicheaux into the Sonniers’ hellish world of madness, murder, and incest. But Robicheaux has devils of his own—and they may just destroy the tormented investigator and the two people he holds most dear.

The story of a father and son separated by war and circumstance—and whose encounter with the legendary Holy Grail will change their lives forever.

From its opening scene in revolutionary Mexico to the Battle of the Marne in 1918, and on to the bordellos and saloons of San Antonio during the reign of the Hole in the Wall Gang, House of the Rising Sun is an epic tale of love, loss, betrayal, vengeance, and retribution that follows Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland on his journey to reunite with his estranged son, Ishmael, a captain in the United States Army.

After a violent encounter that leaves four Mexican soldiers dead, Hackberry escapes the country in possession of a stolen artifact, earning the ire of a bloodthirsty Austrian arms dealer who then places Hack’s son Ishmael squarely in the cross hairs of a plot to recapture his prize, believed to be the mythic cup of Christ.

Along the way, we meet three extraordinary women: Ruby Dansen, the Danish immigrant who is Ishmael’s mother and Hackberry’s one true love; Beatrice DeMolay, a brothel madam descended from the crusader knight who brought the shroud of Turin back from the Holy Land; and Maggie Bassett, one-time lover of the Sundance Kid, whose wiles rival those of Lady Macbeth. In her own way, each woman will aid Hackberry in his quest to reconcile with Ishmael, to vanquish their enemies, and to return the Grail to its rightful place.

House of the Rising Sun is James Lee Burke’s finest novel to date, and a thrilling entry into the Holland family saga that continued most recently with Wayfaring Stranger, which The New York Times Book Review described as “saturated with the romance of the past while mournfully attuned to the unholy menace of the present.”

Newly arrived in Montana, Billy Bob Holland fears for his family’s safety when Wyatt Dixon, the depraved killer rodeo clown he sent to prison back in Texas, is released on a technicality. Dixon declares he has found Jesus and is currently stable on a cocktail of chemicals, but Billy Bob remains dubious of any claims of reformation. He doesn’t have much time to dwell on his suspicions, however, as he’s hired to defend a young Native American activist who is charged with the murder of two mysterious men. As he investigates, Holland discovers a web of intrigue and begins to wonder why Washington has become so concerned with an obscure murder case on the fringes of the Bitterroot Mountains.

“James Lee Burke tells a story in a style all his own, in language that’s alive, electric. He’s a master at setting mood, laying in atmosphere, all with quirky dialogue that’s a delight.” —Elmore Leonard

“Burke is probably the most descriptive mystery writer at work today and In the Moon of Red Ponies contains pages of romantic, luminous descriptions of landscapes. . . . I look forward to the next in the Billy Bob series as eagerly as I do the next Dave Robicheaux. Thrilling stuff.”— Peter Guttridge for The Guardian

“Readers will savor Burke’s lyrical prose and finely shaded psychological tension as Billy Bob and his cohorts teeter between idealism and brutality.”—Entertainment Weekly

A cajun cop infiltrates the mob...but is he too close? Clutching the shards, of his shattered life, Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux has rejoined the New lberia police force. His partner is dead--slain during a condemned prisoner's bloody flight to freedom that left Robicheaux critically wounded and reawakened the ghost of his haunted, violent past. Following the trail of the escaped convicts, Robicheaux is soon drawn back to New Orleans. But this time, the stakes are even higher. He's working for the DEA undercover in an attempt to incriminate Tony Cardo, a clinically insane drug lord. But all Robicheaux's really got is revenge on the mind. And he'll only be satisfied when the killers who upended his life have been brought to justice.

Korean War veteran Iry Paret is trying to put the past behind him, having just been released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola after serving time for manslaughter. He heads west to begin a new life in Montana on the family ranch of Buddy Riordan, a friend from prison. Life in Montana, however, is far from serene. Buddy’s father is waging a one-man campaign to shut down the local pulp mill that is devastating the environment. Tensions are growing, and so is the level of power the Riordans and Iry are up against. Meanwhile, Iry begins falling for Buddy’s estranged wife, and soon his loyalty to his friend as well as his determination to stay on the straight and narrow is put to the test.

“Bulging with virile prose, this good-hearted novel grabs you by the collar, roughs you up a bit, then buys you a drink afterwards.”
—Kirkus Reviews

[A] vital reworking of an American myth, a sobering meditation on the hazards of romantic, idealized actions in an imperfect world.
—Los Angeles Times

Featuring Texas Sheriff Hackberry Holland in an epic tale that is equal parts thriller, Western, and literary masterpiece.

Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town with a deep and abiding respect for the citizens in his care. Still mourning the loss of his cherished wife and locked in a perilous almost-romance with his deputy, Pam Tibbs, a woman many decades his junior, Hackberry feeds off the deeds of evil men to keep his own demons at bay.

When alcoholic ex-boxer Danny Boy Lorca witnesses a man tortured to death in the desert and reports it, Hack’s investigation leads to the home of Anton Ling, a regal, mysterious Chinese woman whom the locals refer to as La Magdalena and who is known for sheltering illegals. Ling denies having seen the victim or the perpetrators, but there is something in her steely demeanor and aristocratic beauty that compels Hackberry to return to her home again and again as the investigation unfolds. Could it be that the sheriff is so taken in by this creature who reminds him of his deceased wife that he would ignore the possibility that she is just as dangerous as the men she harbors?

The danger in the desert increases tenfold with the return of serial murderer Preacher Jack Collins, whom The New York Times called “one of Burke’s most inspired villains.” Presumed dead at the close of Rain Gods, Preacher Jack has reemerged with a calm, single-minded zeal for killing that is more terrifying than the muzzle flash of his signature machine gun. But this time he and Sheriff Holland have a common enemy.

Praised by Joyce Carol Oates for “the luminosity of his writerly voice,” James Lee Burke returns with his most allegorical novel to date, illuminating vital issues of our time—immigration, energy, religious freedom—with the rich atmosphere and devastatingly flawed, authentic characters that readers have come to celebrate during the five decades of his brilliant career.

When Billy Bob Holland gets a call from a fellow Vietnam War veteran, he closes his Texas-based law practice for an extended trip to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. Once there, he finds his friend Doc Voss has tangled with a local mining company threatening to severely damage the area’s ecology. It quickly becomes apparent that an assortment of nefarious characters is on the side of the mining interests, and they will stop at nothing to see that Voss and Holland back down.

“Beautifully written . . . stands head and shoulders above most other crime fiction.”
—The Guardian

“Soaring descriptions of the majestic setting contrast sharply with the evildoings of the people who live there. . . . Those who relish Burke’s patented mix of supercharged violence and overheated passions are in for a treat.”
—Publishers Weekly

Compared to Louisiana, Robicheaux thought Montana would be safe--until two Native American activists suddenly go missing. When Robicheaux begins investigating, he is led into the dark world of the Mafia and oil companies. At the same time, someone from his past comes back to haunt him. Someone who was responsible for Robicheaux's flight from New Orleans--someone who brutally murdered his wife--and now is after young Alafair ...

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, BLACK CHERRY BLUES spans from the mystical streets of New Orleans to the endless mountains of Montana, and ranks among James Lee Burke's finest work--an enduring classic, darkly beautiful and thrilling.

A powerful novel in the Holland Family series, an atmospheric coming-of-age story set in 1950s Texas, as the specter of the Korean War looms.

On its surface, life in Houston is as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality. But beneath the glitz and superficial normalcy, a class war has begun, and it is nothing like the conventional portrayal of the decade. Against this backdrop Aaron Holland Broussard discovers the poignancy of first love and a world of violence he did not know existed.

When Aaron spots the beautiful and gifted Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson, at a Galveston drive-in, he inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob and one of the richest families in Texas. He also discovers he must find the courage his father had found as an American soldier in the Great War.

Written in evocative prose, The Jealous Kind may prove to be James Lee Burke’s most encompassing work yet. As Aaron undergoes his harrowing evolution from boy to man, we can’t help but recall the inspirational and curative power of first love and how far we would go to protect it.

In a heat-cracked southern border town, the bodies of nine women, killed execution-style, are unearthed in a shallow grave. One teenager might even have been buried alive. They had been serving as drug mules for the terrifyingly powerful crime boss Hugo Cistranos. To help with the slayings, Cistranos hired a damaged young Iraq War vet named Pete Flores. But Flores bolted in fear, and now he and his girlfriend, Vikki, are running for their lives. To solve the case, Sheriff Hackberry Holland must contend with suspicious, intruding federal agents, as well as Preacher Jack Collins, a God-fearing serial killer for hire. Holland quickly finds himself caught up in a frantic race for survival—for Pete, Vikki, and himself.

“Burke spins a tale replete with colorful prose and epic confrontations in his second novel to feature small-town Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland . . . [and a] full roster of sharply drawn lowlifes. The battle of wills and wits between Holland and Collins delivers everything Burke’s fans expect.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Nearly every scene builds to a fine crescendo of tension.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Ten short stories centered around the devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi during and after Katrina.

In this moving collection of short stories, James Lee Burke elegantly marries his flair for gripping storytelling with his lyrical writing style and complex, fascinating character portraits. The backdrop of the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast is a versatile setting for Burke’s stories, which cover the scope of the human experience — from love and sex to domestic abuse to war, death, and friendship.

Stories in this collection:

• Winter Light
• The Village
• The Night Johnny Ace Died
• Water People
• Texas City, 1947
• Mist
• A Season of Regret
• The Molester
• The Burning of the Flag
• Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine
• Jesus Out to Sea

Heartwood is a kind of tree that grows in layers. And as Billy Bob's grandfather once told him, you do well in life by keeping the roots in a clear stream and not letting anyone taint the water for you. But in Holland's dusty little hometown of Deaf Smith, in the hill country north of Austin, local kingpin Earl Deitrich has made a fortune running roughshod and tainting anyone who stands in his way. Billy Bob has problems with Deitrich and his shamelessly callous demeanor, but can't shake the legacy of his passion for Deitrich's "heartbreak-beautiful" wife, Peggy Jean.

When Holland takes on the defense of Wilbur Pickett--a man accused of stealing an heirloom and three hundred thousand dollars in bonds from Deitrich's office--he finds himself up against not only Earl's power and influence, but also a past Billy Bob can't will away.  A wonderfully realized novel, rich in Texas atmosphere and lore, and a dazzling portrait of the deadly consequences of self-delusion, Heartwood could only have been written by James Lee Burke, a writer in expert command of his craft.

Vietnam vet Dave Robicheaux has turned in his detective’s badge, is winning his battle against booze, and has left New Orleans with his wife for the tranquil beauty of Louisiana’s bayous. But a plane crash on the Gulf brings a young girl into his life—and with her comes a netherworld of murder, deception, and homegrown crime. Suddenly Robicheaux is confronting Bubba Rocque, a brutal hood he’s known since childhood; Rocque’s hungry Cajun wife; and a Federal agent with more guts than sense. In a backwater world where a swagger and a gun go further than the law, Robicheaux and those he loves are caught on a tide of violence far bigger than them all...

For generations, Perry James’ family has lived under the shadow of the Cumberland range and worked in the coal mines. Staunch union supporters, Perry’s grandfather and father have known hard times and after Perry helps to sabotage the mine to keep the ‘scabs’ out, things look bleaker than ever.To escape from the cycle of poverty, Perry signs up with the Jobs Corps, where they begin to teach him how to read and write, as well as train him in a skilled trade. But Perry is torn between family honor and the lure of seedy beer joints where he can drink and escape the dark and atavistic heritage of the Cumberland Mountains.

In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland encounters Bonnie and Clyde after one of their notorious armed robberies. Weldon is smitten by Bonnie, but a confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark.

Ten years later, Weldon barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein—a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as Bonnie Parker. The three return to Texas where Weldon gets in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business.

In just a few years’ time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless act yet—one inspired by that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth.

“One of the most hopeful and ambitious books he’s ever written . . . Burke seems to get better and better with every book.”
—Benjamin Percy for Poets & Writers

“Burke at his best—vivid, finely wrought, highly evocative writing. . . . A wonderful slice of midcentury American life overlaid with the roiling drama of individual lives as only Burke can portray them.”
—Booklist (starred review)

Lucas Smothers, nineteen and from the wrong end of town, has been arrested for the rape and murder of a local girl. His lawyer, former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland, is convinced of Lucas’s innocence—but proving it won’t be easy amid the deceit and corruption that spreads like wildfire in a gossipy small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business. That includes the poorly kept secret that Billy Bob isn’t just Lucas’s lawyer but, as the result of an extramarital affair, the boy’s father. As Billy Bob seeks to clear his son’s name, he attracts enemies far more dangerous than any he ever faced as a Ranger.

“A book that will cost you some sleep.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“[A] fine, multitextured novel, full of Burke’s lilting, elegiac prose and unflinching in its portrait of the human heart in turmoil.”
—Booklist

New Orleans Detective Dave Robicheaux has fought too many battles: in Vietnam, with police brass, with killers and hustlers, and the bottle. Lost without his wife's love, Robicheaux haunts the intense and heady French Quarter—the place he calls home, and the place that nearly destroys him when he beomes involved in the case of a young prostitute whose body is found in a bayou. Thrust into the seedy world of drug lords and arms smugglers, Robicheaux must face down the criminal underworld and come to terms with his own bruised heart and demons to survive.

Includes the following short stories:

• Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans
• Losses
• The Pilot
• Taking a Second Look
• Hack
• We Build Churches, Inc.
• When It’s Decoration Day
• Lower Me Down with a Golden Chain
• The Convict

In hot and sultry Texas, Hack, an attorney and Korean War POW, is being pushed by his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends in the oil business to run for political office. But Hack would prefer to drink, look after his beloved horses, and represent the occasional long-shot pro bono case at his law firm. When Hack attempts to overturn a conviction for an old army buddy, he finds himself embroiled in the seamy underbelly of the Texas patronage system—and in the earliest beginnings of the United Farm Workers movement, led by a beautiful woman who speaks to his heart in a way no one else has. As Hack begins to bring justice to the underserved, he finds both a new love and a new purpose.

With his skillful blend of engaging plotlines, compelling characters, and graceful prose, James Lee Burke demonstrates the shimmering clarity of vision that has made him beloved by suspense fans all over the globe.

Meet Avery Broussard, the last in a line of once-substantial land owners whose weakness for alcohol lands him in prison; J.P. Winfield, a dirt-poor singer who makes it to the top of hillbilly music only to be destroyed by a drug addiction; and Toussaint Boudreaux, a black longshoreman who is set up for a crime he did not commit. What brings them together, and how they must struggle to escape the bondage that links them makes for a tale of atmosphere and suspense that is vintage Burke.

When a cloaked, disfigured man leaves a dead woman in a garbage bag on Dave Robicheaux’s property, he knows his world and family are about to change.

With Valerie Benoit, a detective new to the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department who is grappling with sexist and racist harassment from their colleagues, and the volatile but fiercely loyal Clete Purcel, Dave embarks on an investigation that brings him into the most dangerous moments of his career and threatens the lives of Valerie and his daughter Alafair.

He encounters a local handyman who leaves cryptic notes and warns of the ghosts who roam the shores of the bayou and is targeted by a vicious New Orleans button man and gangsters from the north.

Through brilliant prose and a quintessential cast of characters, James Lee Burke weaves a portrait of a gritty, violent Louisiana at the turn of the 20th century. Visceral, atmospheric, and wholly original, The Hadacol Boogie brings to life Dave Robicheaux’s fierce determination to confront evil both past and present.

In the fall of 1863, the Union Army is in control of the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is retreating toward Texas, and being replaced by Red Legs, irregulars commanded by a maniacal figure, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom.

When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous. Wade Lufkin, haunted by what he observed—and did—as a surgeon on the battlefield, has returned to his uncle’s plantation to convalesce, where he becomes enraptured by Hannah. Flags on the Bayou is an engaging, action-packed narrative that includes a duel that ends in disaster, a brutal encounter with the local Union commander, repeated skirmishes with Confederate irregulars led by a diseased and probably deranged colonel, and a powerful love blossoming between an unlikely pair. As the story unfolds, it illuminates a past that reflects our present in sharp relief.

James Lee Burke, whose “evocative prose remains a thing of reliably fierce wonder” (Entertainment Weekly), expertly renders the rich Louisiana landscape, from the sunsets on the Mississippi River to the dingy saloons of New Orleans to the tree-lined shores of the bayou and the cottonmouth snakes that dwell in its depths. Powerful and deeply moving, Flags on the Bayou is a story of tragic acts of war, class divisions upended, and love enduring through it all.

Novelist Aaron Holland Broussard is shattered when his daughter Fannie Mae dies suddenly. As he tries to honor her memory by saving two young men from a life of crime amid their opioid-ravaged community, he is drawn into a network of villainy that includes a violent former Klansman, a far-from-holy minister, a biker club posing as evangelicals, and a murderer who has been hiding in plain sight.

Aaron’s only ally is state police officer Ruby Spotted Horse, a no-nonsense woman who harbors some powerful secrets in her cellar. Despite the air of mystery surrounding her, Ruby is the only one Aaron can trust. That is, until the ghost of Fannie Mae shows up, guiding her father through a tangled web of the present and past and helping him vanquish his foes from both this world and the next.

Drawn from James Lee Burke’s own life experiences, Every Cloak Rolled in Blood is a devastating exploration of the nature of good and evil and a deeply moving story about the power of love and family.

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The American West in the early 1960s appears to be a pastoral paradise: golden wheat fields, mist-filled canyons, frolicking animals. Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard has observed it from the open door of a boxcar, riding the rails for both inspiration and odd jobs.

Jumping off in Denver, he finds work on a farm and meets Joanne McDuffy, an articulate and fierce college student and gifted painter. Their soul connection is immediate, but their romance is complicated by Joanne’s involvement with a shady professor who is mixed up with a drug-addled cult. When a sinister businessman and his son who wield their influence through vicious cruelty set their sights on Aaron, drawing him into an investigation of grotesque murders, it is clear that this idyllic landscape harbors tremendous power—and evil. Followed by a mysterious shrouded figure who might not be human, Aaron will have to face down all these foes to save the life of the woman he loves and his own.

The latest installment in James Lee Burke’s masterful Holland family series, Another Kind of Eden is both riveting and one of Burke’s most ambitious works to date. It dismantles the myths of both the twentieth-century American West and the peace-and-love decade, excavating the beauty and idealism of the era to show the menace and chaos that lay simmering just beneath the surface.

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The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle.

As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life—alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam, and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see killed.

A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke’s fortieth book, is his most powerful tale, one that will captivate readers—mixing crime, romance, mythology, horror, and science fiction to produce a thrilling story about the all-consuming, all-conquering power of love.

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