Showing results by author "James Lee Burke" in All Categories

It is a rainy late-summer's night in New Orleans. Detective Dave Robicheaux is about to confront the man who may have savagely assaulted his friend, Father Jimmie Dolan, a Catholic priest who's always at the center of controversy. But things are never as they seem and soon Robicheaux is back in New Iberia, probing a car crash that killed three teenage girls. A grief-crazed father and a maniacal assassin are just a few of the characters Robicheaux meets as he is drawn deeper into a web of secrets and violence.

Detective Dave Robicheaux is fighting his demons to overcome his toughest case yet. There's something off about the relationship between mob boss Tony Nemo, local author Levon Broussard and New Orleans poster boy Jimmy Nightengale, and after a vicious assault, it's up to Robicheaux to uncover the truth. Complicating matters is the sudden death of T. J. Dartez, the New Iberian local responsible for Robicheaux's wife's death, and all are looking to the detective as the murderer. Can Robicheaux clear his name?

Wilbur Pickett is a retired rodeo rider with big dreams. Dreams of a secure future for himself and his native American wife, a blind woman who sees more than a blind woman should thanks to her ancient heritage. When Wilbur happens upon a parcel of land with black gold waiting for the taking he also happens on Deitrich and a whole bunch of violent problems. Only lawyer Billy Bob Holland is prepared to stand up for Wilbur, to stand against the juggernaut that is Deitrich and his corrupting influence.

The forty-year-old crucifixion of a prominent labor leader named Jack Flynn remains an unsolved atrocity that has never been forgotten in New Iberia, Louisiana. When Flynn's daughter Megan, a photojournalist drawn to controversial subjects, returns to the site of her father's murder, it quickly becomes clear that her family's bloodstained past will not stay buried. Megan gives her old friend Dave Robicheaux a tip about a small-time criminal named Cool Breeze Broussard, scarcely suspecting that the seemingly innocuous case will lead Robicheaux and his partner into the midst of deadly conspiracy. Combining brilliant prose, crackling suspense, and an exquisite sense of character and place, Sunset Limited is a wrenching tale of historic violence and soiled redemption that reveals America's finest novelist at his masterful best.

Hunting a sadistic killer who targets young prostitutes, Detective Dave Robicheaux has no mind to be sidetracked into persuading ex-schoolmate mobster Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni to leave town. And it turns out that Balboni is the money behind a Civil War movie that's bringing in good business. But then the film crew stumble on a skeleton out in the bayou, and the links between a thirty-year-old lynching, a Civil War general, Balboni and the serial killer lead Dave into treacherous waters, with only a handful of unexpected allies to help him protect his own.

A bullet shot through the window of Weldon Sonnier's house propels Dave Robicheaux back into the lives of a family he's not sure he wants to be reacquainted with ... Weldon Sonnier's CIA-influenced past has led to dangerous connections and commitments, including debts to local mob boss Joey 'Meatballs' Gouza. As Weldon puts himself in the line of fire, Lyle Sonnier, television evangelist and faith healer, reveals to Dave a violent family history that intersects menacingly with Dave's own.

When a Nazi submarine is discovered lying in sixty feet of water off the Louisiana coast some troubled ghosts are ready to be released. A local businessman is offering Detective Dave Robicheaux big money to bring the wreck to the surface, but he is not the only one after the submarine and its mysterious cargo. Neo-Nazis are on the march in New Orleans, a new spirit of hatred is abroad, and its terrifying embodiment, an icy psychopath called Will Buchalter, is stalking Robicheaux's wife.

When Amanda Boudreau is raped and murdered, it's small-time black hustler Tee Bobby Hulin's prints that are found at the crime scene. Tee Bobby pleads innocence, but then attempts suicide in his holding cell. Why? Lawyer Perry LaSalles takes on the defence, but his motives are fuelled by guilt.

The call from ex-Klansman Aaron Crown couldn't have been more unexpected. Sentenced to forty years for the decades-old shooting of a civil rights activist, Crown should have been out of Iberia Parish, Louisiana, for good. Election candidate Buford LaRose wants Detective Dave Robicheaux to ignore Aaron's calls, promising Robicheaux a lucrative job when he makes governor. Worse still, Buford's wife, Karyn, seems unhealthily interested in getting very close to Robicheaux—just like old times. The LaRoses, each for their own reasons, want Crown's case buried.

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. 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 will do anything to recapture his prize, believed to be the mythic cup of Christ.

Lucas Smothers, nineteen and from the wrong end of town, has been arrested for the rape and murder of a local girl. His lawyer Billy Bob Holland is convinced of Lucas's innocence but proving it means unearthing the truth from a seething mass of deceit and corruption. A corruption endemic in the way it can be only in a gossipy small town where everybody knows everybody else's business. Billy Bob's relationship with Lucas's family is not an easy one—years back he was a close friend of Mrs Smothers, too close according to her husband Vernon.

The merciless Shondell and Balangie families are long-time enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny and Isolde - star-crossed teenage lovers - have run away together. As he tried to uncover the reasons why, Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde's mother and her father's mistress. In retribution, Balangie - as jealous as he is cruel - hires an assassin to hunt Robicheaux and his long-time partner, Clete Purcel.

Dave is in a recovery unit in New Orleans, where a Creole girl named Tee Jolie Melton visits him and leaves him an iPod with the country blues song 'Creole Belle' on it. Then she disappears. Dave becomes obsessed with the song and the memory of Tee Jolie and goes in search of her sister, who later turns up inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf. Meanwhile, there has been an oil well blowout on the Gulf, threatening the cherished environs of the bayous.

The Convict and Other Stories is a superb collection of stories set in and around the American Deep South and its charismatic people.

Son Holland arrived in the Louisiana penal camp determined not to spend the rest of his days suffering in a chain gang - but he didn't imagine for one minute that in order to escape he would need to kill a man. Terrified for his life, he flees the state across the river to Texas, taking with him a beautiful Indian squaw and a fellow prisoner. And as they make their way towards General Houston's infamous Texas Rangers they find themselves in the midst of the final tragic battle for the Alamo.

Set mainly in Louisiana during the years 1861-1868, this passionate novel of me, woman and war tells the story of the author's ancestor's, Confederate soldier Willie Burke, during the American Civil War. A classic Burke hero, Willie is soon in conflict with his superiors. The characters who people these pages, many of them based on real historical figures, are as memorable as any Burke has created.

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.

Trouble is rising in Montana's Bitterroot Valley and only one man is willing to stop it.... Frank Riordan is waging a one-man campaign to shut down the local pulp mill that is polluting the air and devastating the environment; tensions are growing, and the only man who can help already has troubles of his own. Having served time for accidentally killing a man Iry Paret is making a fresh start on Frank's ranch, where he meets a dynamic and beautiful woman who will test the limits of Iry's loyalty to his friends.

Wyatt Dixon, rodeo cowboy and 'the most dangerous, depraved, twisted and unpredictable human I ever knew' is certainly not one of Billy Bob Holland's favourite people. Sentenced to 60 years in jail for murder, Dixon is out after only a year, due to the DA's failure to disclose a piece of information. He swears he's a changed man and needs Billy Bob's help, but how can Billy Bob believe the man who tortured his wife? And then there's Johnny American Horse, who has been caught carrying a gun. He says he needs it for protection; in a dream he saw two men coming for him.

Hackberry Holland is a man haunted by a chequered and traumatic past. A former POW from the Korean War, he has left everything behind to become sheriff of a dried-out, broken-down border town in south Texas. Hack soon finds himself dealing with more than just his own demons when nine dead prostitutes are dug up behind a run-down church. The search for justice - and revenge - pits Hack against hired guns, drug dealers, and a psychotic killer known as The Preacher.