New Release Books by James Lee Burke

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.

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. A prequel to James Lee Burke''s masterful Holland family trilogy, 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.

In the early 1800s, nineteen-year-old Son Holland is falsely accused of stealing a purse and condemned to ten years in a brutal Louisiana prison camp. Determined not to spend the next decade behind bars, Son teams up with a fellow inmate and a beautiful Native American woman, and the trio flees. Killing a guard in the process, however, ensures they''ll face a punishment far worse than the chain gang if they''re caught. They realize their best chance for escape is seeking cover in the violent storm of revolution led by General Houston and James Bowie. Soon they find themselves in the midst of historic battles, attempting to secure not only their own freedom but that of the Republic of Texas. -- Back cover

Texas attorney and former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland has many secrets in his dark past. Among them is Vernon Smothers'' son Lucas, a teenaged boy about whom only Vernon and Billy Bob know the truth. Lucas is really Billy Bob''s illegitimate son, and when Lucas is arrested for murder, Billy Bob knows that he has no choice but to confront the past and serve as the boy''s criminal attorney. During Lucas''s trial, Billy Bob realizes that he will have to bring injury upon Lucas as well as himself in order to save his son. And as a result, Billy Bob creates enemies that are far more dangerous than any he had faced as a Texas Ranger.

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.

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 New York Times bestselling 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, is looking for answers. Neither Cormier nor his enigmatic actor friend Antoine Butterworth are saying much, but Robicheaux knows better. As always, Clete Purcel and Davie’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.” With The New Iberia Blues, Burke proves that he “just keeps getting better” (Booklist, starred review), and is “one of a small handful of elite suspense writers whose work transcends the genre, making the leap into capital-L Literature” (BookPage).

Hack Holland is a product of the South, both old and new. Hard drinking ex POW and wealthy, progressive Democrat, he stands in the long shadow cast by his ancestors. When Holland''s candidacy for a congressional seat brings him increasingly into conflict with those around him, his almost unwitting involvement with a violent civil rights conflict forces him to reassess his future and his past...

James Lee Burke’s most beloved character, Dave Robicheaux, returns in this New York Times bestselling mystery set in the towns and backwoods of Louisiana: an “enthralling yet grim novel that…will captivate, start to finish” (Publishers Weekly). 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 like to give to Levon Broussard, a popular local author whose books have been adapted into major Hollywood films. Then there’s Jimmy Nightengale, the young poster boy of New Orleans wealth and glamour. Jimmy’s fond of Levon’s work, and even fonder of his beautiful, enigmatic wife, Rowena. Tony thinks Jimmy can be a US Senator someday, and has the resources and clout to make it happen. There’s something off about the relationship among these three men, and after a vicious assault, it’s up to Robicheaux to uncover the truth “in the barn-burner of a climax” (Booklist, starred review). Complicating matters is the sudden death of the New Iberian local responsible for Molly’s death; namely that Robicheaux’s colleague thinks Robicheaux had something to do with it. As Robicheaux works to clear his name and make sense of the murder, a harrowing study of America emerges: 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. “It has been almost five years since James Lee Burke’s last Dave Robicheaux novel, and it was absolutely worth the wait” (Associated Press).

Intervening when he sees the beautiful and gifted Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, Aaron Holland Broussard inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob in his Korean War-era Texas community.

"[T]he story of a father and son separated by war and circumstance--and whose encounter with the legendary Holy Grail will change their lives forever-- 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"--

James Lee Burke has been hailed as a “national treasure” (Tampa Bay Times) and in his ninth Dave Robicheaux thriller, it’s easy to see why. This taut, twisted tale of corruption in the Louisiana bayou truly brands Burke as “America’s best novelist” (Denver Post). 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.

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 Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein—a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get 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. A tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller, Wayfaring Stranger “is a sprawling historical epic full of courage and loyalty and optimism and good-heartedness that reads like an ode to the American Dream” (Benjamin Percy, Poets & Writers).

A summer getaway in Montana for Dave Robicheaux''s family and friends is violently shattered by the arrival of serial killer and prison escapee Asa Surrette. By the Edgar Award-winning author of Creole Belle. Reprint.

Burke brings his brilliant feel for time and place to a stunning story of Appalachia in the early 1960s.

From James Lee Burke, called “America''s best novelist” by The Denver Post, comes a brand new e-short about a young man''s encounter with the infamous Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow—a story that becomes the first chapter in Burke’s upcoming novel Wayfaring Stranger. Sixteen-year-old Weldon Holland has had to grow up fast as he tries to support his family in the aftermath of the agricultural disaster of the Dust Bowl. One night, a carload of strangers appears on the Hollands'' property, carrying the air of incipient danger underneath a veneer of pleasantries. Weldon finds himself inexplicably drawn to the group of trespassing vagabonds—who, despite being camped out on a hidden riverbank in the middle of nowhere, drive the most expensive automobile that Weldon has ever seen. In the unbearable, rainless heat of a Dust Bowl summer, Weldon will find himself mixed up in an encounter with the infamous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde—an encounter that changes the course of Weldon''s life…and history itself. Rich with criminal and social history of the American West and a young boy’s struggle to become a man, “A Dust Bowl Tale of Bonnie and Clyde” is just the beginning of Weldon Holland’s story.

From the New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke comes another brilliant Dave Robicheaux novel—now available in ebook—featuring the Louisiana detective in a race to solve a murder before more blood is shed. 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 u00adu00adu00adbreathtaking finale.

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!

Dave Robicheaux is back in a dangerous mystery that involves stolen money, gritty casinos, and a beautiful girl with connections to his past. When a nice young woman named Trish Klein blows into Louisiana, passing hundred-dollar bills in local casinos, detective Dave Robicheaux senses a storm bearing down on his new life of contentment… Twenty-five years ago, lost in a drunken haze in Florida, Robicheaux was too far gone to save his friend and fellow ’Nam vet Dallas Klein, murdered in cold blood for gambling debts. Now, the arrival of Dallas’s daughter opens a door locked long ago, and extracting her motives points Robicheaux to the suicide of a local “good girl” pulled into a vortex of power, sex, and death. It’s Robicheaux’s most personally painful case—a roller coaster of passion, surprise, and regret—and it may be his deadliest.

The sixth in the New York Times bestselling Dave Robicheaux series delivers a heart-pounding bayou manhunt—and features “one of the coolest, earthiest heroes in thrillerdom” (Entertainment Weekly ). 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 face-to-face with the elusive guardians of his darkest torments— who hold the key to his ultimate salvation or a final, fatal downfall.

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.