Bestselling author James Lee Burke tells his most thrilling and insightful story yet through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Bessie Holland

At the beginning of the twentieth century, as America grapples with forces of human and natural violence more powerful than humanity has ever seen, Bessie Holland yearns for the love that she has never known. She finds a soulmate and mentor in a brilliant but tormented suffragette English teacher, who inspires Bessie to fight the forces of evil that permeate her world.

Watching the vast Texas countryside being destroyed by an oil company and a menacing figure with a violent past, Bessie is prepared to defend her home and her family. But when she accidentally kills an unarmed man to defend her father Hackberry, she must flee to New York. There, her older brother introduces her to boys who will grow into gangsters, but as children admire and respect Bessie's spirit and fortitude as she is cast into a gangland that yearns for justice and mercy.

A welcome return to the beloved Holland series and populated with characters both radiant and despicable, Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie is an epic story of a remarkable young girl who fights against potentially overwhelming forces.

In the latest installment in his famous Detective Dave Robicheaux series, New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke brings Dave's partner and friend Clete Purcel to the forefront for the first time as Clete and Dave attempt to stop ruthless smugglers of a dangerous new drug

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, a woman with a dark past 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. James Lee Burke proves yet again that he is the heavyweight champ and great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed (Michael Connelly).

EDGAR AWARD WINNER FOR BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR

From New York Times-bestselling author James Lee Burke comes 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. 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 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. Flags on the Bayou is an engaging, action-packed narrative that includes a duel that ends in disaster, a brutal encounter with the local Union commander, repeated skirmishes with Confederate irregulars led by a diseased and probably deranged colonel, and a powerful story of love blossoming between an unlikely pair. As the story unfolds, it illuminates a past that reflects our present in sharp relief.

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.

EDGAR AWARD WINNER FOR BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR

From New York Times-bestselling author James Lee Burke comes 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. 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 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. Flags on the Bayou is an engaging, action-packed narrative that includes a duel that ends in disaster, a brutal encounter with the local Union commander, repeated skirmishes with Confederate irregulars led by a diseased and probably deranged colonel, and a powerful story of love blossoming between an unlikely pair. As the story unfolds, it illuminates a past that reflects our present in sharp relief.

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.

A dynamic, gripping collection of short stories from America's best novelist (Denver Post), the New York Times bestselling James Lee Burke

Harbor Lights is a story collection from one of the most popular and widely acclaimed icons of American fiction, featuring a never-before-published novella. These eight stories move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the South, weaving together love, friendship, violence, survival, and revenge

A boy and his father watch a German submarine sink an oil tanker as evil forces in the disguise of federal agents try to ruin
their family. A girl is beaten up outside a bar as her university-professor father navigates new love and threats from a group of neo-Nazis. A pair of undercover union organizers are hired to break colts for a Hollywood actor, whose Western hero façade hides darkness. An oil rig worker witnesses a horrific attack on a local village while on a job in South America and seeks justice through one final act of bravery.

With his nuanced characters, lyrical prose, and ability to write shocking violence in the most evocative settings, James Lee Burke's singular skills are on display in this superb anthology. Harbor Lights unfolds in stories that crackle and reverberate as unexpected heroes emerge.

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...

A dynamic, gripping collection of short stories from America's best novelist (Denver Post), the New York Times bestselling James Lee Burke

Harbor Lights is a story collection from one of the most popular and widely acclaimed icons of American fiction, featuring a never-before-published novella. These eight stories move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the South, weaving together love, friendship, violence, survival, and revenge.

As an atmosphere of suspicion pervades their Louisiana town, a boy and his father watch a German submarine sink an oil tanker. A girl is beaten up outside a bar as her university-professor father navigates new love and threats from a group of neo-Nazis. A pair of undercover union organizers are hired to break colts for a Hollywood actor, whose Western hero façade hides darkness. An oil rig worker witnesses a horrific attack on a local village while on a job in South America and seeks justice through one final act of bravery.

With his nuanced characters, complex prose, and ability to write shocking violence in the most evocative settings, James Lee Burke's singular skills are on display in this superb anthology. Harbor Lights unfolds in stories that crackle and reverberate as unexpected heroes emerge.

But decades later, when a powerful Jewish activist wants the sub raised, 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.

James Lee Burke looks long and hard into the human heart of darkness in his most electrifying novel yet, a story of terror and courage in a Southern Louisiana where the horrific and the beautiful rise from the same fertile soil.

In the waning days of summer 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana. This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As The Tin Roof Blowdown begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed; New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city.

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.

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.

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.

Few writers in America today combine James Lee Burke's lush prose, crackling story lines, and tremendous sense of history and landscape. In Cimmaron Rose, longtime fans of the Dave Robicheaux series found that the struggles of Texas defense attorney Billy Bob Holland show Burke at his best in exploring classic American themes--the sometimes subtle, often violent strains between the haves and the have-nots; the collision of past and present; the inequities in the criminal justice system.

Heartwood is a kind of tree that grows in layers. And as Billy Bob's grandfather once told him, you do well in life by keeping the roots in a clear stream and not letting anyone taint the water for you. But in Holland's dusty little hometown of Deaf Smith, in the hill country north of Austin, local kingpin Earl Deitrich has made a fortune running roughshod and tainting anyone who stands in his way. Billy Bob has problems with Deitrich and his shamelessly callous demeanor, but can't shake the legacy of his passion for Deitrich's heartbreak-beautiful wife, Peggy Jean.

When Holland takes on the defense of Wilbur Pickett--a man accused of stealing an heirloom and three hundred thousand dollars in bonds from Deitrich's office--he finds himself up against not only Earl's power and influence, but also a past Billy Bob can't will away. A wonderfully realized novel, rich in Texas atmosphere and lore, and a dazzling portrait of the deadly consequences of self-delusion, Heartwood could only have been written by James Lee Burke, a writer in expert command of his craft.

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 classic-passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy-wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.