New Iberia, Louisiana, is reeling from a one-two punch of brutal rape-homicides, and drug-addicted blues singer Tee Bobby Hulin has been tagged as the prime suspect. No stranger to bucking popular opinion, police detective Dave Robicheaux senses it's not Hulin behind the atrocities. With his longtime friend, Clete Purcel, Robicheaux treads among land mines of injustice, mob payoffs, and deadly secrets, all the while guessing: whom can he trust and whom should he fear?

Iry Paret's done his time -- two years for manslaughter in Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary. Now the war vet and blues singer is headed to Montana, where he hopes to live clean working on a ranch owned by the father of his prison pal, Buddy Riordan. In prison, Iry tinkered with a song -- 'The Lost Get-Back Boogie' -- that never came out quite right. Now, the Riordan family's problems hand him a new kind of trouble, with some tragic consequences. And Iry must get the tune right at last, or pay a fateful price.

Per il detective Dave Robicheaux, la Louisiana è terra di fantasmi: dove il tempo sembra scorrere all'indietro, e i ricordi possono uccidere. Come il ricordo inatteso di Ida Durbin. Ida era giovane e bella, e svanì nel nulla in un giorno d'estate. Era il '58 quando Dave e il suo fratellastro Jimmie conobbero Ida a Galveston. Lei cantava i blues di Kitty Wells accompagnandosi con il mandolino. Il suo sogno era incidere un disco, ma la sua vita era rimasta intrappolata tra le pareti di un bordello. Doveva saldare un vecchio debito. Jimmie, innamoratosi a prima vista delle sue chiome rosse, voleva scappare con lei in Messico. Ma il giorno pianificato per la fuga, Ida scomparve, portata via da un'auto misteriosa. Un caso ben più attuale sta scuotendo intanto la comunità cajun: gli omicidi del 'serial killer di Baton Rouge'. Le sue vittime accertate sono almeno cinque. Nonostante gli anni che passano, l'insofferenza di Robicheaux per l'ingiustizia e l'arroganza del potere è rimasta intatta. Così come il genuino desiderio di andare oltre la ferita razziale che non ha mai smesso di lacerare la sua terra. Protetto dall'inseparabile angelo custode Clete Purcel, Dave tenterà di seguire le labili tracce di Ida e nel contempo di fermare il serial killer prima che sia troppo tardi, anche grazie all'aiuto di una incredibile suora-attivista.

Critically acclaimed and bestselling crime writer James Lee Burke returns to Louisiana where his ever-popular hero, Dave Robicheaux, sleuths his way through a hotbed of sin and uncertainty.

For Dave Robicheaux, life in Louisiana is filled with haunting memories of the past. In Crusader's Cross, a deathbed confession from an old schoolmate resurrects a story of injustice, the murder of a young woman, and a time in Robicheaux's life he has tried to forget.

Her name may or may not have been Ida Durbin. It was back in the innocent days of the 1950s when Robicheaux and his brother, Jimmie, met her on a Galveston beach. She was pretty and Jimmie fell for her hard -- not knowing she was a prostitute on infamous Post Office Street, with ties to the mob. Then Ida was abducted and never seen again.

Now, decades later, Robicheaux is asking questions about Ida Durbin, and a couple of redneck deputy sheriffs make it clear that asking questions is a dangerous game. With a series of horrifying murders and the sudden appearance of Valentine Chalons and his sister, Robicheaux is soon involved with the murderous energies of the New Orleans underworld.

A fourth novel featuring former Texas Ranger turned lawyer turned crime fighter, Billy Bob Holland, set in the savage and beautiful landscape of Montana. Burke has won the CWA Macallan Gold Dagger and the Edgar Award twice.

Five early James Lee Burke titles new to Orion, from the highly acclaimed Dave Robicheaux series. Burke has won the Gold Dagger prize once, and the Edgar Award twice.

'James Lee Burke tells a story in a style all his own, in language that's alive, electric. He's a master at setting mood, laying in atmosphere, all with quirky dialogue that's a delight.' -- Elmore Leonard

In James Lee Burke's last novel featuring Billy Bob Holland, Bitterroot, the former Texas Ranger left his home state to help a friend threatened by the most dangerous sociopath Billy Bob had ever faced. After vanquishing a truly iniquitous collection of violent individuals, Billy moved his family to west Montana and hung out a shingle for his law practice. But in In the Moon of Red Ponies, he discovers that jail cells have revolving doors and that the government he had sworn to serve may have become his enemy.

His first client in Missoula is Johnny American Horse, a young activist for land preservation and the rights of Native Americans. Johnny is charged with the murder of two mysterious men -- who seem to have recently tried to kill Johnny themselves, or at least scare him off his political causes. As Billy Bob investigates, he discovers a web of intrigue surrounding the case and its players: Johnny's girlfriend, Amber Finley, as reckless as she is defiant -- and the daughter of one of Montana's U.S. senators; Darrel McComb, a Missoula police detective who is obsessed with Amber; and Seth Masterson, an enigmatic government agent whose presence in town makes Billy Bob wonder why Washington has become so concerned with an obscure murder case on the fringes of the Bitterroot Mountains.

As complications mount and the dead bodies multiply, Billy Bob is drawn closer to the truth behind Johnny American Horse's arrest -- and discovers a greater danger to himself and to his whole family. How Billy Bob strikes back at evil and protects his kin is the masterful triumph of In the Moon of Red Ponies.

Beautifully written, with an intriguing plot and characters whose conflicts seem as real as life itself, this novel shows James Lee Burke again in the top form that has made him a critical favorite and a national bestseller.

Due omicidi con stupro. Le vittime - un'adolescente classica brava ragazza e una prostituta tossicodipendente - hanno poco o nulla in comune. Il musicista blues Bobby Hulin sembra essere il primo naturale sospettato. Il detective Robicheaux sente però che non c'è lui dietro quei crimini. Emerge una rete di collegamenti che porta a una ricca famiglia dell'aristocrazia terriera, i LaSalle. Cercando di far luce sulla vicenda, l'ex poliziotto cajun si imbatte in una serie di personaggi sinistri, dal boss mafioso padre della prostituta uccisa a un enigmatico venditore di bibbie, per finire con una diabolica figura al servizio dei LaSalle.

Ormai al suo tredicesimo romanzo, Dave Robicheaux, l'eroe più popolare della serie più lunga di James Lee Burke, si trova ad affrontare gli ennesimi cambiamenti della sua vita: Bootsie, la seconda moglie, è morta, la sua casa è bruciata, sua figlia Alafair è andata a studiare al college. Forse è giunto per lui il momento di rimettere piede in quella New Orleans che significa i ricordi di una vita, vecchi fantasmi e ferite che si riaprono. Il detective di New Iberia torna a immergersi tra la fauna criminale della celebre città della Louisiana per aiutare il suo vecchio amico Jimmie Dolan: un prete insofferente alle regole, che è stato vittima di una brutale aggressione per aver pestato i piedi alla mafia locale.

For Dave Robicheaux, there is no easy passage home. New Orleans, and the memories of his life in the Big Easy, will always haunt him. So to return there -- as he does in Last Car to Elysian Fields -- means visiting old ghosts, exposing old wounds, opening himself up to new, yet familiar, dangers.

When Robicheaux, now a police officer based in the somewhat quieter Louisiana town of New Iberia, learns that an old friend, Father Jimmie Dolan, a Catholic priest always at the center of controversy, has been the victim of a particularly brutal assault, he knows he has to return to New Orleans to investigate, if only unofficially. What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he is inviting into his life -- and into the lives of those around him -- an ancestral evil that could destroy them all.

The investigation begins innocently enough. Assisted by good friend and P.I. Clete Purcel, Robicheaux confronts the man they believe to be responsible for Dolan's beating, a drug dealer and porno star named Gunner Ardoin. The confrontation, however, turns into a standoff as Clete ends up in jail and Robicheaux receives an ominous warning to keep out of New Orleans' affairs.

Meanwhile, back in New Iberia, more trouble is brewing: Three local teenage girls are killed in a drunk-driving accident, the driver being the seventeen-year-old daughter of a prominent physician. Robicheaux traces the source of the liquor to one of New Iberia's 'daiquiri windows,' places that sell mixed drinks from drive-by windows. When the owner of the drive-through operation is brutally murdered, Robicheaux immediately suspects the grief-crazed father of the dead teen driver. But his assumption is challenged when the murder weapon turns up belonging to someone else.

The trouble continues when Father Jimmie asks Robicheaux to help investigate the presence of a toxic landfill near St. James Parish in New Orleans, which in turn leads to a search for the truth behind the disappearance many years before of a legendary blues musician and composer. Tying together all these seemingly disparate threads of crime is a maniacal killer named Max Coll, a brutal, brilliant, and deeply haunted hit man sent to New Orleans to finish the job on Father Dolan. Once Coll shows up, it becomes clear that Dave Robicheaux will be forced to ignore the warning to stay out of New Orleans, and he soon finds himself drawn deeper into a viper's nest of sordid secrets and escalating violence that sets him up for a confrontation that echoes down the lonely corridors of his own unresolved past.

A masterful exploration of the troubled side of human nature and the darkest corners of the heart, and filled with the kinds of unforgettable characters that are the hallmarks of his novels, Last Car to Elysian Fields is James Lee Burke in top form in the kind of lush, atmospheric thriller that his fans have come to expect from the master of crime fiction.

The novel's title is the name of the song that Iry Paret - a honky-tonk musician, Korean vet, and ex-con wants to write to hold his memories of a 'more uncomplicated time,' before the war, before prison. The book opens the day thirty-year-old Iry leaves Louisiana's Angola state penitentiary, after serving two years for manslaughter, and follows him to Montana, where he hopes to stay cool and out of trouble by working hard on a ranch owned by the father of his prison pal, Buddy Riordan. Iry finds the fresh start he seeks, joins a weekend band, and even falls in love. But the Riordan family's problems deal Iry a new sort of trouble with some ultimately tragic consequences.

Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley is called to a posh Miami neighborhood to investigate a lethal overdose. There he meets the alluring stepmother of the decedant, and begins to wonder about dating a witness. Meanwile, he has been threatened with suspension by his ambitious new chief unless he leaves his beloved, if squalid, suite at the El Dorado Hotel, and moves downtown. With free housing hard to come by, Hoke is desperate to find a new place to live. His difficulties are only amplified by an assignment to re-investigate fifty unsolved murders, the unexpected arrival of his two teenage daughters, and a partner struggling with an unwanted pregnancy. With few options and even fewer dollars, he decides that the suspicious and beautiful stepmother of the dead junkie might be a compromised solution to all of his problems.

Packed with atmosphere and humor, New Hope for the Dead is a classic murder mystery by one of the true masters of the genre. Now back in print, Charles Willeford's tour de force is an irresistible invitation to become acquainted with one of the greatest detective characters of all time.

A riveting evocation of the Civil War, drawn from the true family history of 'America's best novelist' (The Denver Post), JAMES LEE BURKE

1861. Two young Southerners, friends despite their differing political views and backgrounds, enlist in the 18th Louisiana regiment of the Confederate Army: Robert Perry, wealthy and privileged, and irreverent Willie Burke, the son of Irish immigrants, face the trials of battle and find redemption in the love of a passionate and committed abolitionist, Abigail Downing, and in the courageous struggle of Flower Jamison, a beautiful slave. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters, and penetrating a landscape of shattering Civil War bloodshed as few novels have, this epic from an American literary giant endows readers with the gift of experiencing the past through new eyes, while its timeless prose style -- at once luminous and brutal -- ensures the legacy of this bloodiest of conflicts will never be lost.

Un sindacalista viene trovato crocifisso alla parete di un granaio. Dopo trent'anni questo efferato delitto è stato ormai rimosso dalla memoria e i responsabili sono ancora in circolazione. A far luce su questo mistero viene chiamato Dave Robicheaux che, come al solito, lo farà a modo suo. Veterano del Vietnam con un tragico passato di alcolista ed ex poliziotto della squadra omicidi di New Orleans, Robicheaux cerca sempre di far valere il proprio senso etico e ciò che rimane della propria umanità, unico modo per sopravvivere in una terra perversa dimenticata dai trionfalismi del sogno americano. Con questo romanzo James Lee Burke riprende il fortunato ciclo del detective cajun Dave Robicheaux.

Louisiana, 1836. Tra paludi soffocanti e fatali, un campo di prigionia dai ritmi massacranti. Due detenuti, Son Holland e Hugh Allison, condividono la stessa cella e la speranza di andarsene un giorno, sognando il Texas. Non hanno nulla in comune e un giorno, del tutto inaspettata, si presenta la loro occasione. I due fuggono, ma l'inferno che credevano di essersi lasciati alle spalle non tarderà a braccarli. Inizia così una fuga disperata, un vorticoso viaggio dalla Louisiana al Texas. E mentre il cerchio attorno a loro si stringe, i due entrano di forza nella storia americana. A pochi giorni dalla Dichiarazione di Indipendenza del Texas, Hugh e Son saranno al fianco di Sam Huston nell'esercito che sconfiggerà definitivamente i messicani a Sant'Anna.

Son Holland e Hugh Allison sono prigionieri in un carcere tra le paludi della Lousiana e sanno di non avere futuro. Il loro destino è morire lontani da un mondo che li ha dimenticati. Non hanno nulla in comune: il primo è giovane ed è finito dentro con l'unica colpa di essere un ingenuo, il secondo invece è una vecchia canaglia che nella vita ne ha già viste troppe. Ma per un colpo di fortuna coglieranno insieme l'ultima occasione per fuggire, lasciandosi l'inferno alle spalle. Per Son e Hugh inizia così una fuga contro il tempo, fatta di sudore e sangue, attraverso una natura sontuosa e indifferente, nel disperato tentativo di raggiungere il Texas. La notizia della loro evasione si diffonde, sempre più in fretta, il cerchio attorno a loro si stringe come la corda tesa di una forca. A pochi giorni dalla Dichiarazione di Indipendenza del Texas e dall'epica sconfitta di Fort Alamo, i due latitanti, troppo onesti per una terra spietata, sfioreranno da eroi il corso della storia e scopriranno che il loro viaggio li ha resi uomini nuovi.

New Iberia, Louisiana, is reeling from a one-two punch of brutal rape-homicides, and drug-addicted blues singer Tee Bobby Hulin has been tagged as the prime suspect. No stranger to bucking popular opinion, police detective Dave Robicheaux senses it's not Hulin behind the atrocities. But while placating a town on fire for swift revenge, Robicheaux must face his own demons -- an ultimate reckoning with Legion Guidry, a diabolical figure whose hardcore brand of violence left Robicheaux humiliated and addicted to painkillers. With his longtime friend, the boozing and womanizing Clete Purcel, Robicheaux treads among land mines of injustice, mob payoffs, and deadly secrets, all the while guessing: whom can he trust -- and whom should he fear?

James Lee Burke brings back his acclaimed hero Dave Robicheaux in this powerful New York Times bestseller packed with suspense and menace.

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....

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JAMES LEE BURKE

THE NEON RAIN

Detective Dave Robicheaux has fought too many battles: in Vietnam, with killers and hustlers, with police brass, and with the bottle. Lost without his wife's love, Robicheaux's haunted soul mirrors the intensity and dusky mystery of New Orleans' French Quarter -- the place he calls home, and the place that nearly destroys him when he becomes involved in the case of a young prostitute whose body is found in a bayou. Thrust into the world of drug lords and arms smugglers, Robicheaux must face down a subterranean criminal world and come to terms with his own bruised heart in order to survive.

Following his acclaimed bestseller Purple Cane Road, James Lee Burke returns with a triumphant tour de force.

Set in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, home to celebrities seeking to escape the pressures of public life, as well as to xenophobes dedicated to establishing a bulkhead of patriotic paranoia, Burke's novel features Billy Bob Holland, former Texas Ranger and now a Texas-based lawyer, who has come to Big Sky Country for some fishing and ends up helping out an old friend in trouble.

And big trouble it is, not just for his friend but for Billy Bob himself -- in the form of Wyatt Dixon, a recent prison parolee sworn to kill Billy Bob as revenge for both his imprisonment and his sister's death, both of which he blames on the former Texas lawman. As the mysteries multiply and the body count mounts, the reader is drawn deeper into the tortured mind of Billy Bob Holland, a complex hero tormented by the mistakes of his past and driven to make things -- all things -- right. But beneath the guise of justice for the weak and downtrodden lies a tendency for violence that at times becomes more terrifying than the danger he is trying to eradicate.

As USA Today noted in discussing the parallels between Billy Bob Holland and Burke's other popular series hero, David Robicheaux, 'Robicheaux and Holland are two of a kind, white-hat heroes whose essential goodness doesn't keep them from fighting back. The two series describe different landscapes, but one theme remains constant: the inner conflict when upright men are provoked into violence in defense of hearth, home, women, and children. There are plenty of parallels. Billy Bob is an ex-Texas Ranger; Dave is an ex-New Orleans cop. Dave battles alcoholism and the ghosts of Vietnam; Billy Bob actually sees ghosts, including the Ranger he accidentally gunned down....But most of all, both protagonists hold a vision of a pure and simple life.'

In Bitterroot, with its rugged and vivid setting, its intricate plot, and a set of remarkable, unforgettable characters, and crafted with the lyrical prose and the elegiac tone that have inspired many critics to compare him to William Faulkner, James Lee Burke has written a thriller destined to surpass the success of his previous novels.

Mass market paperback edition of the latest title from the bestselling American crime writer of }Cimarron Rose{ and }Sunset Limited{. A chance encounter takes Detective Rovicheaux on a journey into the murky world of vice, politics and murder w

From Edgar Award-winner James Lee Burke comes this emotional powerhouse of a novel ... in which everyman hero Dave Robicheaux confronts the secrets of his long-forgotten past in a shattering tale of revenge, murder, and a mother's haunting legacy....

Robicheaux first hears it from a pimp eager to trade information for his life: Mae Guillory was murdered outside a New Orleans nightclub by two cops. Dave Robicheaux was just a boy when his mother ran out on him and his whiskey-driven father.

Now Robicheaux is a man, still haunted by her desertion and her death. More than thirty-five years after Mae Guillory died, her son will go to any length to bring her killers to justice. And as he moves closer to what happened that long-ago night, the Louisiana cop crosses lines of color and class to find the place where secrets of his past lie buried ... and where all roads lead to revenge -- but only one road leads to the truth....

A brilliantly layered novel of crime, character, and place from the two-time Edgar Award winner, Gold Dagger Award winner, and New York Times bestselling author of  Sunset Limited.

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.


From the Hardcover edition.

Two escaped convicts, Son Holland and Hugh Allison, flee to Texas in the hopes of finding freedom by becoming key players in the Texas Revolution. Reprint.

In a land soaked with sin, Dave Robicheaux is dueling with killers, ghosts, and a woman's revenge....

The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a barn wall with sixteen-penny nails.

Decades later, Megan, now a world-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking for cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave who found the body of labor leader Jack Flynn. The sight changed the boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarre unsolved slaying.

Now Megan's return has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a storm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites in this bayou county. And for a good cop with bad memories, hard desires, and chilling nightmares, the time has come to uncover the truth.

First published in 1965, the hugely popular author's debut novel traces the destinies of three desperate Louisiana men--an alcoholic land-owner, a famous country music star addicted to drugs, and a black longshoreman framed for murder. Reprint.

Lawyer, Billy Bob Holland is convinced of the innocence of his client, Lucas Smothers, a nineteen-year-old charged with rape. Whilst in prison, Lucas hears gruesome tales of serial murder, thereby placing him and his lawyer in extreme danger. N

Dave Robicheaux, a detective in the New Iberia, Louisiana, Sheriff's Office, becomes embroiled in a new investigation into the twenty-eight-year-old murder of a famed NAACP leader, when the man convicted of the crime asks him to prove his innocence