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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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FROM BOOKLIST STARRED REVIEW
The New Iberia Blues.
By James Lee Burke
At 82, Burke just keeps getting better, his familiar theme of an idyllic past at war with a demon-drenched present taking on more subtle levels of meaning; his storied lyricism drawing on a new range of powerfully resonant minor chords; his now-iconic characters—Cajun police detective Dave Robicheaux and Dave's running buddy and guardian angel, Clete Purcell ("a heart as big as the world")—feeling weighed down by the burden of age yet at the same time emboldened by the knowledge that although "we would never change the world . . . the world would never change us." In this twenty-second Robicheaux novel, Dave is again threatened by forces from within and without, but this time, those forces interact to produce a kind of nuclear reaction on the lives of Robicheaux, his loved ones, and the inhabitants of New Iberia, Louisiana. It begins with the first of a series of ritualistic murders—a woman crucified and floating on a barge near the estate of a local boy made good, Hollywood director Desmond Cormier. As Dave and new partner Bailey Ribbons investigate,
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A new Dave Robicheaux novel will always be a major publishing moment, and this one is bigger than most.
— Bill Ott
New Iberia Blues Reading and Signing Event
James Lee Burke will be Reading & Signing
NEW IBERIA BLUES
Tuesday, January 8th - 7:00pm
Best of 2018
ROBICHEAUX is on the Barnes and Noble list of BEST Thrillers & Suspense Books of 2018!
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.
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.