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Louisiana Native, Dave Robicheaux has fought too many battles: in Vietnam, with killers and hustlers, with police brass, and with the bottle. His best friend, Clete Purcel, has been alongside Robicheaux to help him fight the demons -- and bring along his own.
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We first meet the Hollands in Two for Texas. The Holland series reflects the same themes about violence, racism, the residual influences of the War Between the States, alcoholism, and concern for the Earth that we find in the standalone books and the Robicheaux series.
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New Iberia Blues Reading and Signing Event
James Lee Burke will be Reading & Signing
NEW IBERIA BLUES
Tuesday, January 8th - 7:00pm
Publishers Weekly
In Edgar winner Burke’s masterly 22nd novel featuring Iberia Parish, La., detective Dave Robicheaux (after 2018’s Robicheaux), Hollywood director Desmond Cormier, whom Robicheaux knew 25 years earlier as a young man on the streets of New Orleans with big plans of heading to California to make movies, returns to Louisiana to shoot his next film. When the crucified body of a woman is found floating in the bay close to Cormier’s waterfront estate, Robicheaux investigates. Meanwhile, his pal Clete Purcel witnesses a man leap from a moving train into the bayou. Could the presence of this man, escaped convict Hugo Tillinger, somehow connect with Robicheaux’s case? Several other bodies turn up, all grotesquely staged to represent cards in a tarot deck. Robicheaux is convinced that Cormier’s film crew is involved, but he soon finds himself in a shadowy world of rogue cops, mobsters, and a childlike assassin named Smiley. With his lush, visionary prose and timeless literary themes of loss and redemption, Burke is in full command in this outing for his aging but still capable hero.
The Sequel to Robicheaux
The Robicheaux novel due out in January of 2019 has been re-titled The New Iberia Blues. Actually, it is a continuation of the novel titled Robicheaux. You might remember Smiley Wimple. If you are a Smiley fan, I’m happy to announce that Smiley is back in E-major, full-tilt, code-red overdrive.
The center of the story is a bit different from the rest of my work. We meet Desmond Cormier, a poor boy from the reservation who becomes a street artist in the French Quarter, then a director in Hollywood. Desmond is obsessed with John Ford’s work in general and his 1946 masterpiece My Darling Clementine in particular.
While visiting Desmond’s beautiful bayside home, Dave peers through a telescope and sees the body of a woman who has been nailed to a cross, the body bobbing in the chop, her damp hair curled in tendrils on her face and throat. At that moment Dave realizes he is about to step into the heart of darkness, and that his friend Desmond, lost in his obsession with light and shadow, may be his escort across the Styx.
This book may be the best in the series. If it’s not, it’s awful close. I hope you enjoy it.
Best wishes,
Jim
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The New Iberia Blues
James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke, a rare winner of two Edgar Awards, and named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, is the New York Times Best Selling Author of more than thirty novels and two collections of short stories. He lives in Missoula, Montana.