James Lee Burke

Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux finds himself living a nightmare when he is dispatched to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to search for a morphine-addicted priest, a vigilante, and two serial rapists in a city that has been reduced to the level of medieval society.

A Louisiana farmer is jailed for the murder, 30 years earlier, of a black civil rights leader. The farmer claims he is innocent and asks Dave Robicheaux, the sheriff's deputy, to help him prove it. Not easy, as it suits a lot of people to have the case closed.

"Dave Robicheaux is a haunted man. From the acts he committed in Vietnam, to his battles with alcoholism, to the sudden loss of his beloved wife, Molly, his thoughts drift from one irreconcilable memory to the next. Images of ghosts pepper his reality. Robicheaux's only beacon remains serving as a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana. It's in that capacity that Robicheaux crosses paths with powerful mob boss, Tony Nemo. Tony has a Civil War sword he'd...

When last seen in The Glass Rainbow, the previous book in the Dave Robicheaux series, Robicheaux was recovering in a New Orleans hospital from a near-fatal bullet wound. Immobilized and heavily medicated by morphine, he was visited there by a beautiful Creole woman named Tee Jolie Melton. After she's gone, his fond, hazy remembrances of her are rekindled by one song, "Creole Belle" on the iPod that she left behind. Now obsessed by the song and thoughts...

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...

Texas Ranger turned lawyer Billy Bob Holland travels to Montana to help an old friend in trouble and finds himself in equal danger when an old enemy vows vengeance.

"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...

Just when Dave Robicheaux thinks stability has come to his life, memories emerge to send the recovering alcoholic into a tailspin. It all begins with the appearance of a young woman named Trish Klein, who could be the daughter of one of Robicheaux's old crime partners. The suicide of another young woman named Yvonne Darbonne doesn't help his mood, either. Soon, Dave finds himself caught up in a web of connections linking the suicide to a Mafia thug...

At the center of this novel set against the Civil War and Reconstruction are the author's own ancestors, Robert Perry, from a slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willie Burke, a poor boy born of Irish immigrants. Both join the Confederate Army, but are determined not to back down in their commitment to their moral beliefs, friends, and the abolitionist woman, Abigail Dowling, with whom both have become infatuated. The catalyst for much...

Detective Dave Robicheaux returns to center stage in an incendiary new novel by James Lee Burke. A gripping tale of racial violence, class warfare, and the sometimes cruel legacy of Southern history, Sunset Limited is a stunning achievement, confirming Burke's place as one of America's premier stylists as well as master storytellers. The forty-year-old crucifixion of a prominent labor leader named Jack Flynn remains an unsolved atrocity that has...