James Lee Burke

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About James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He’s authored thirty-seven novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

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Every Cloak Rolled in Blood (A Holland Family Novel) May 24, 2022

by James Lee Burke

$12.99

In his most autobiographical novel to date, James Lee Burke continues the epic Holland family saga with a writer grieving the death of his daughter while battling earthly and supernatural outlaws.

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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Audio CD

Another Kind of Eden Aug 17, 2021

by James Lee Burke

( 2,176 )

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New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke brings readers a captivating tale of justice, love, brutality, and mysticism set in the turbulent 1960s.

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 saga, 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 Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Jul 9, 2010

by James Lee Burke

( 1,491 )

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From New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke comes his definitive, must-read first title in his famous Dectective David Robicheaux series.

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.

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A Private Cathedral: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Aug 11, 2020

by James Lee Burke

( 4,169 )

$12.99

After finding himself caught up in one of Louisiana’s oldest and bloodiest family rivalries, Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin.

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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Two for Texas Aug 31, 2010

by James Lee Burke

( 359 )

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This James Lee Burke classic features Son Holland, the great-grandfather of beloved hero Billy Bob Holland, as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow.

James Lee Burke steps back three generations to reveal the lightning-paced tale of western lawman Billy Bob Holland’s great-grandfather, a fugitive swept up in the proud fight for Texan independence.

Son Holland escaped a Louisiana chain gang—but never intended to kill a prison guard during the breakaway. Terrified for his life, on the run through the bayou with fellow escapee Hugh Allison and a beautiful Indian squaw, Son flees across the river to Texas, where the only chance the travelers have for survival awaits in a violent storm of revolution led by General Houston and James Bowie.

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Heaven's Prisoners (Dave Robicheaux Book 2) Jul 8, 2010

by James Lee Burke

( 976 )

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James Lee Burke’s second Robicheaux novel takes the detective out of New Orleans and into the bayou as he seeks a quieter life.

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...

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Black Cherry Blues: A Novel (Dave Robicheaux Book 3) Dec 15, 2011

by James Lee Burke

( 1,087 )

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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 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.

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A Stained White Radiance: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Jan 27, 2014

by James Lee Burke

( 590 )

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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.

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The New Iberia Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Jan 8, 2019

by James Lee Burke

( 2,237 )

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Named one of the best crime novels of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review.

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).

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A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux Book 4) Dec 15, 2011

by James Lee Burke

( 860 )

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A cajun cop infiltrates the mob...but is he too close?

A Morning for Flamingos is a classic Dave Robicheaux Louisiana mystery by New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke.

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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux Book 7) Feb 24, 2014

by James Lee Burke

( 530 )

$9.99

From two-time Edgar Award–winner and New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke comes a thrilling novel—now available in ebook—that pits Dave Robicheaux against the worst opponent he’s encountered yet.

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!

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

In the Moon of Red Ponies: A Novel (Billy Bob Holland Book 4) Jun 8, 2004

by James Lee Burke

( 384 )

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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.” —Elmore Leonard

In James Lee Burke’s last novel featuring Billy Bob Holland, Bitterroot, the former Texas Ranger left his home state to help a friend threatened by the most dangerous sociopath Billy Bob had ever faced. After vanquishing a truly iniquitous collection of violent individuals, Billy moved his family to west Montana and hung out a shingle for his law practice. But in In the Moon of Red Ponies, he discovers that jail cells have revolving doors and that the government he had sworn to serve may have become his enemy.

His first client in Missoula is Johnny American Horse, a young activist for land preservation and the rights of Native Americans. Johnny is charged with the murder of two mysterious men—who seem to have recently tried to kill Johnny themselves, or at least scare him off his political causes. As Billy Bob investigates, he discovers a web of intrigue surrounding the case and its players: Johnny's girlfriend, Amber Finley, as reckless as she is defiant—and the daughter of one of Montana's US senators; Darrel McComb, a Missoula police detective who is obsessed with Amber; and Seth Masterson, an enigmatic government agent whose presence in town makes Billy Bob wonder why Washington has become so concerned with an obscure murder case on the fringes of the Bitterroot Mountains.

As complications mount and the dead bodies multiply, Billy Bob is drawn closer to the truth behind Johnny American Horse’s arrest—and discovers a greater danger to himself and to his whole family. How Billy Bob strikes back at evil and protects his kin is the masterful triumph of In the Moon of Red Ponies.

Beautifully written, with an intriguing plot and characters whose conflicts seem as real as life itself, this novel shows James Lee Burke again in the top form that has made him a critical favorite and a national bestseller.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

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