James Lee Burke

"Clete Purcel--private investigator, former cop, and war veteran with a hard shell covering just a few soft spots--is Dave Robicheaux's longtime friend and partner in detective work. But he has a troubled past. When Clete picks up his car from the local car wash, only to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade, it feels personal--his grandniece died of a fentanyl overdose, and his fists curl when he thinks of the dealers who sold...

"On his way to visit an inmate at a Texas prison who has promised him information, Detective Dave Robicheaux stops off at an amusement park to watch a teenaged Elvis-like rock-and-roller from his hometown of New Iberia named Johnny Shondell playing to a crowd of swooming young girls. One of them is another New Iberia teenager named Isolde Balangie. The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime rivals in the New Iberia criminal underworld. Yet Johnny...

"The American West in the early 1960s appears to be a pastoral paradise. 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 Jo Anne McDuffy, a college student and gifted painter. Their connection is immediate, but their romance is complicated by Joanne's involvement with a professor who is mixed up with...

"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...

Vintage James Lee Burke: The first novel introducing the memorable Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, coming of age against the backdrop of the civil rights era in a sultry border town.
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...

In his most ambitious work yet, New York Times bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man's unforgettable life.
In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark.

Ten years later, Second Lieutenant...

Haunting suspense and captivating villains, the hallmark of James Lee Burke's bestselling novels of evil and redemption, are brilliantly evoked in his new Billy Bob Holland opus, the follow-up to the popular and critically acclaimed Bitterroot.

"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."...

In this Edgar Award-winning thriller, former Louisiana homicide cop Dave Robicheaux is trying to start a new life after the murder of his wife — but he can't escape his past forever.  Dave Robicheaux was once a Louisiana homicide cop. Now he's trying to start a new life, opening up a fishing business and caring for his adopted girl, Alafair.
Compared to Louisiana, Robicheaux thought Montana would be...

Discover the debut novel of James Lee Burke, before the creation of his now-famous Cajun detective, Dave Robicheaux , as he weaves together the struggles of three very different men.
Toussaint Boudreaux, a black docker in New Orleans, puts up with his co-workers' racism because he has to, and moonlights as a prize-fighter in the hope of a better life-but the only break he gets lands him in penal servitude. J.P. Winfield, a hick with a...

Before The Lost Get-Back Boogie appeared to wide acclaim in 1986, James Lee Burke had been out of print in cloth for thirteen years and his fifth novel had received a record 111 rejection letters. "LSU Press put me back in the game and turned my career around," Burke says. The novels and stories Burke had written during those years of rejection eventually became the stuff of the Dave Robicheaux series, which has earned him two Edgar Awards.

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