'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, Detective Dave Robicheaux is fighting his demons to overcome his toughest case yet. Powerful mob boss Tony Nemo 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. The sword's history can be traced back to Broussard's ancestors, and Tony figures it belongs to Levon. But Tony's intentions aren't so pure; he believes the gift will lead to a slice of Broussard's lucrative film adaptations. 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 between these three men, 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 before it's too late?
Dave Robicheaux se remet de ses blessures dans une unité de soins de La Nouvelle-Orléans, où il reçoit la visite d'une jeune femme, Tee Jolie Melton. Elle lui laisse un iPod, avec le blues « My Creole Belle ». Une chanson qui, avec le souvenir de Tee Jolie, finit par l'obséder. Mais dans cette atmosphère languissante baignée de morphine, et avec tous les démons qui plus que jamais l'accompagnent, Dave nourrit des doutes : tout cela est-il bien réel ou l'a-t-il rêvé ? Car Dave découvre que Tee Jolie est censée avoir disparu depuis des mois.
Aussi, lorsque sa jeune soeur Blue est retrouvée morte congelée, Dave décide de partir à sa recherche. Une enquête éprouvante, au point que Clete Purcel, son vieil ami lui-même à la limite de la rupture, se met à craindre pour sa santé mentale...
Dave Robicheaux, son épouse Molly et son ami Clete Purcel tentent d'oublier le traumatisme de Katrina en s'immergeant dans la nature somptueuse et sauvage du Montana. Alors qu'il pêche tranquillement, Clete est pris à partie par deux individus qui l'ont reconnu à cause d'une sordide affaire pourtant très ancienne. Ces hommes aux manières brutales et au passé trouble travaillent pour un riche entrepreneur extrêmement déplaisant. Alors qu'une ambiance malsaine s'installe, d'horribles faits divers se produisent...
Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the ageold adage that the sins of the father pass onto the son. But what has his mother's legacy left him? Dead to him since youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Dave's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of his whiskeydriven father. But deep down, he still feels the loss of his mother and knows the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks him if he is Mae Guillory's boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. The pimp goes on to insinuate that the cops who dumped her body in the bayou were on the take and continue to thrive in the New Orleans area.Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son. PURPLE CANE ROAD has the dimensions of a classicpassion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancywrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surpises from start to finish.From the Hardcover edition.
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 honour 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 harbours 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.
A novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana, as the South transforms and a brilliant cast of characters-enslaved and free women, plantation gentry, and battle-weary Confederate and Union soldiers-are caught in the maelstrom.
In the fall of 1863, the Union Army is in control of the Mississippi River and much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The retreating Confederate army is 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 Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.
Wade Lufkin, haunted by what he observed-and did-as a surgeon on the battlefield, has returned to his uncle''s plantation to convalesce, where he becomes enraptured by Hannah.
James Lee Burke, whose "evocative prose remains a thing of reliably fierce wonder" (Entertainment Weekly), expertly renders the rich Louisiana landscape, from the sunsets on the Mississippi River to the dingy saloons of New Orleans to the tree-lined shores of the bayou and the cottonmouth snakes that dwell in its depths. Powerful and deeply moving, Flags on the Bayou is a story of tragic acts of war, class divisions upended, and love enduring through it all.
In the latest Robicheaux novel, Clete Purcel - veteran, private investigator, and former New Orleans cop - takes centre stage for the first time.
****
Clete Purcel - private investigator, ex-member of the New Orleans Police Department, and war veteran with a hard shell and just a few soft spots - is Dave Robicheaux''s longtime friend and partner in detective work. But he has a troubled past.
When Clete leaves his car at the local car wash, only to return to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade from Mexican cartels to Louisiana, it feels personal - his grandniece died of a fentanyl overdose, and his fists curl when he thinks of the dealers who sold it.
Just as Clete starts to trail the culprits, Clara Bow hires Clete as a detective to investigate her scheming, slippery ex-husband, and a string of brutal deaths all link back to a heavily tattooed man who seems to lurk around every corner. Clete is experiencing shockingly lifelike hallucinations and questioning Clara''s ulterior motives when he and Dave start to hear rumors of a dangerous substance with potentially catastrophic effects. The thugs who destroyed his car might have been pawns in a scheme far darker than they could''ve imagined.
Gripping, violent, yet interlaced with Clete''s humor and consistent drive to protect those he loves, Clete brings a fresh perspective to a truly iconic series.
****
PRAISE FOR JAMES LEE BURKE, THE AWARD-WINNING KING OF SOUTHERN NOIR:
''James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed'' Michael Connelly
''A gorgeous prose stylist'' Stephen King
''No argument: James Lee Burke is among the finest of all contemporary American novelists'' Daily Mail
''The greatest crime writer currently at work'' Spectator
''The reigning champ of nostalgia noir'' New York Times
A rainy late-summer night finds Dave Robicheaux in a New Orleans bar, about to confront the man who may have savagely assaulted his friend, Father Jimmie Dolan. Robicheaux is drawn deeper into a viper's nest of sordid secrets and escalating violence that sets him up for a confrontation that echoes of his past.
Running from a checkered past to become a sheriff in a ramshackle Texas border town, Hackberry Holland, the cousin of Montana lawyer Billy Bob, investigates the murders of nine prostitutes, a situation that pits him against hired guns, skin-bar owners, and drug dealers. Reprint. 350,000 first printing. A best-selling book.
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 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.
