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JAMES LEE BURKE
An inspiration to aspiring writers everywhere, Burke's LOST GET-BACK BOOGIE was rejected 111 times over a period of nine years, and upon its publication by Louisiana State University press was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Born in Houston, Texas in 1936, he grew up on the Texas Louisiana gulf coast. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute and later received a BA Degree in English and an MA from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960 respectively. Over the years he worked as a landman for Sinclair Oil Company, pipeliner, land surveyor, newspaper reporter, college English professor, social worker on Skid Row in Los Angeles, clerk for the Louisiana Employment Service, and instructor in the U. S. Job Corps. Married with four children, today he lives in Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana. In addition to his Pulitzer nomination, Burke's work has been awarded an Edgar twice for Best Crime Novel of the Year. He has also been a recipient of a Breadloaf and Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant.

Burke's work is marked out by his vivid, lyrical prose and moral and philosophical complexity. At times he skirts a little too close to pretentiousness and literary affectation. He is a at his best in his landmark DAVE ROBICHEAUX novels, arguably one of the best and most influential series in modern crime writing. His influence is clear on such writers as DENNIS LEHANE and ROBERT CRAIS and a host of lesser writers. His poetic prose perfectly mirrors the febrile, fetid landscape of the southern Louisiana setting, and the explosive, baroque characters who people his tales. Often his stories are but pegs to hang his moral questioning and wonderful portraiture of his singular casts. Robicheaux himself is a recovering alcoholic, tormented not only by his own addiction but also but his troubled past and latent propensity to violence. When we first meet him in his debut novel, THE NEON RAIN he is a burnt-out New Orleans Homicide cop, but in the succeeding tales he quits the force and relocates to New Iberia, but is sucked back into a world of crime and violence first as Private Investigator, and later as a cop with the New Iberia PD. Among the teeming casts of the books the most appealing and memorable is the recurring character of Clete Purcel, Robicheaux former partner from the New Orleans PD. He is yin to Robicheaux's yang. While Dave is outwardly tormented and morally conflicted, Clete is almost childlike in his direct and amoral attitude to life. Ruthless and violent, charming and hilarious, his outward simplicity masks a troubled and romantic soul. When Robicheaux's angst and self-loathing paralyse the tale, Clete arrives to inject an explosiveness of pace and action.

Choosing my favourite from among the 13 Robicheaux novels is nigh on impossible, with Burke maintaining a unusually high level of quality control, but THE NEON RAIN, A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS and A STAINED WHITE RADIANCE stand out not just for the characterisations and evocation of setting and mood, but for their gripping narratives.

If you like James Lee Burke you'll love...
Keith Ablow, Robert Crais, John Connolly, Dennis Lehane, Thomas Harris and Robert B. Parker

Visit the Official James Lee Burke Website at jamesleeburke.com


THE DAVE ROBICHEAUX SERIES

THE NEON RAIN (1987)
Johnny Massina, a convicted murderer bound for the electric chair warns New Orleans homicide detective Dave Robicheaux that he's on someone's hit-list.  As Dave seeks to discover whose target he's become before he ends up dead, he takes on the murder investigation of a young black girl found dead in the Bayou swamp. The investigation leads him to a drug-dealing mafia, an ex-General with sinister connections in Nicaragua and a terrifying confrontation with the one horror he fears most of all.

The first of the Robicheaux novels is a stellar debut and remains one of the best in the long-running series. Still on the force in New Orleans and trying to stay off the bottle, this instantly establishes the landscape of the series, with Burke going deep beneath the feverish underbelly of southern Louisiana, introducing its colourful population (not the least of whom is wildman Clete Purcel), all the while exploring the inner-demons that drive us all. Hell has never been evoked with such poetic beauty - the oxymoronic clash of beautiful prose and venality and squalor only adding to the novel's potency.

HEAVEN'S PRISONERS (1987)
Dave Robicheaux is trying to put a life of violence and crime behind him, leaving homicide to run a boat-rental business in Louisiana's bayou country. But when a two-engine plane crashes in the Gulf he is drawn into a chilling and terrifying investigation.

Not the best of the series (but bizarrely the one they made into a movie), this is still an important entry not only for the introduction of key characters for the future novels, but for tragic events and the havoc they wreak upon Dave's life and the psychic scars inflicted upon his already troubled soul. 

BLACK CHERRY BLUES (1989)
Detective Dave Robicheaux reluctantly agrees to help an old friend who is addicted to cocaine. The friend, Dixie, carries with him a brutal trail of violence and murder and even Dave's young ward Alafair is threatened.

One of the weaker novels in the series, due in part to the transposition of a good deal of the action to Montana (Burke's real-life second home), and as is often the case with crime series associated with distinct locales, relocation seems to rob the work of some of its essential spirit.

A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS (1990)
A routine assignment transporting two death-row prisoners to their executions goes fatally wrong, leaving Dave Robicheaux brutally wounded and his partner dead. Obsessed with revenge, Dave is persuaded by the DEA to go undercover into the torrid underworld of New Orleans' drug trade. Caught up in the lethal undercurrents of a mob double-cross, desperately seeking revenge and redemption, Dave must confront his most dangerous enemy - himself

Arguably the finest of the Robicheaux novels, this plunges deep into the omnipresent heart of darkness that threatens to engulf Burke's world. Tormented by guilt and seeking salvation through violence, Dave is drawn into the seething heart of the 'Big Sleazy', whilst travelling deep within the tortured confines of his soul. A deftly structured novel, textured with moral ambiguity and human despair, this tale of obsession, revenge and redemption transcends genre, to be worthy of consideration as great literature.

A STAINED WHITE RADIANCE (1992)
 A bullet fired through the window of Weldon Sonnier's house propels Dave Robicheaux into the lives of a family he's not sure he wants to be reacquainted with. Weldon's CIA and Mob connections soon threaten to drag Dave into the racial mess of the modern South, and he comes face to face with possibly his most elusive enemy, former Klansman Bobby Earl.

Another masterful entry in the series, only marginally off the near perfection of A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS. As labyrinthine and febrile as the American Gothic writings of Williams and Faulkner, this is not just crime writing of the first order, by ranks somewhere alongside the greats.

IN ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD (1993)
A movie crew has come to New Iberia, Louisiana, to film a Civil War epic, and star Elrod Sykes just can't seem to keep his lavender Cadillac on the road. Under threat of a drunk driving charge, he offers Detective Dave Robicheaux information in exchange for leniency: he leads him to the skeletal remains of a man whose murder Robicheaux witnessed in the summer of 1957.

The weakest of the Robicheaux novels, not least because of Dave's bizarre new-found habit of communing with the dead. This fantastical device isn't helped by the weakest of plotlines and some surprisingly shoddy characterisation.

DIXIE CITY JAM (1994)
When a Nazi submarine is discovered off the coast of Louisiana it soon becomes clear that the dark forces it represents are alive and all too well. Neo-Nazi's are on the march in New Orleans and their leader, icy psychopath Will Buchalter, will stop at nothing to get his hands on the submarine’s mysterious cargo. Only detective Dave Robicheaux and his family stand between Buchalter and his terrifying ambitions.

A return to form by Burke after the wayward affectations of IN THE ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD. A brutally straightforward plot, tersely written with a kind of savage simplicity and clarity of purpose.

BURNING ANGEL (1995)
Sonny Marsallas, a New Orleans street hustler turns up in New Iberia and entrusts Dave Robicheaux with a mysterious notebook. A series of violent events ensues. Sonny's girlfriend is killed for what she knows...and the motive for her murder is only the first of the answers that Robicheaux is going to have to learn if his own life is not to be forfeit. Why do a bunch of leftist South American guerrillas know Sonny as Red Angel? Why is the Mob out to acquire a piece of New Iberian swamp and might Sonny this time have pushed his wheeler-dealing one step too far?

Burke is right back at his best here - bleak, savage and uncompromising. Encompassing New Orleans low-life and the dirty wars of Central America, matching lyrical prose often with unspeakable horror, humour alongside deep reflection, this one of the stand-out Robicheaux novels.

CADILLAC JUKEBOX (1996)
When Aaron Crown is finally imprisoned for the decades-old murder of Ely Dixon, it is to Dave Robicheaux that he proclaims his innocence loudest. Dave isn't keen to get involved, but then a filmmaker seeking to prove Crown's innocence is murdered and the mob accuse Dave of taking a pay-off.

A densely plotted, complex tale of low politics and racial violence, delivered with Burke's usual accomplished style of lyricism and violence, perfectly reflecting the ambiguity of his characters. Wonderfully written, though at times over-plotted.

sunset limited  (1998)
On discovering that a celebrated professional photographer and her brother, a successful film director, have become involved in the inquiry into their father's murder, Robicheaux suspects trouble, but not a double murder.

Another of the weaker books in the series. A perfunctory plot, and some unconvincing characters all add up to a slightly routine entry. After a sojourn writing his first Billy Bob Holland novel, maybe Burke's heart wasn't really in this, it all reeks a little of deja vu, and his grasp of his central character also seems to be slipping. Saved by Burke's sure prose and the past goodwill of his readers.

PURPLE CANE ROAD (2000)
Dave Robicheaux embarks on his most painful and personal odyssey yet, when he learns that his mother was a prostitute who ended up drowned by crooked cops in the pay of the Mob. As Dave and his partner Clete Purcell investigate, they encounter State Governor Belmont Pugh, a fundamentalist preacher; the terrifying Remeta, a super-intelligent hit man, and, most significantly, Jim Gable, owner of the mansion in Purple Cane Road, who knows more about Dave's wife than Dave himself.

A reaffirmation of Burke's status as possibly the pre-eminent crime writer of his generation, and one of the most unique voices in American literature. The Robicheaux books are always at their best when they explore Dave's own dark history and inner demons, when politics play second fiddle to a probing examination of evil and our struggle with the darkness that dwells within our souls. Guilt, revenge, sin and salvation - this is  a collision of pure southern gothic and born-again hardboiled crime.

JOLIE BLON'S BOUNCE (2002)
Three men are present when Amanda Boudreau is raped and murdered and small time hustler Tee Bobby Hulin's prints are found at the crime scene. Dave Robicheaux reckons he's innocent, and Tee Bobby pleads so, then attempts suicide in his holding cell. Why? Tee Bobby is released on bail and soon after there is a second murder. When lawyer Perry LaSalle takes on the defence of Tee Bobby, Dave knows his motives are fuelled by guilt. For Tee Bobby's grandmother was seduced by Perry's grandfather, and Amanda Boudreau's death is related to events that happened long before Tee Bobby was born.

Another fine entry in the series, where Burke continues his exploration of the dark secrets and lies that fester at the heart of families. Lyrical and brutal, Burke's prose is unmistakeable, the horror of this world has rarely been evoked with such beauty. 

LAST CAR TO ELYSIAN FIELDS (2003)
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, a Catholic priest who's always at the centre of controversy. But things are rarely what they seem, and soon Robicheaux is back in New Iberia, probing a car crash that killed three teenage girls. A grief-crazed father and a maniacal, conflicted assassin are just a few of the characters Robicheaux meets as he is 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.

Displaying Burke's hallmark juxtaposition of violence and lyricism, cynicism and hope, and featuring an exploration of a Robicheaux cast adrift without his good angels (his wife is dead, his daughter away at college) and his rage untrammelled and trained upon the world is fascinating. Best of all Clete Purcell features largely in the tale, with 'The Bobsey Twins' unleashed and wreaking havoc upon anyone foolish enough to cross them. The usual multi-stranded plot (that of course all intersects neatly in the end) is pretty standard fare - bygone crime from the distant past resurrect, family with secrets, another of Dave's high-class exes, but the biggest flaw is a kind of inconsistency of tone. Burke's own avowed liberalism clogs the pages, with Dave self-righteously denouncing all sundry of perceived evils (George W. Bush/Wal-Mart/Prostitution/Alcohol/Drugs - and the ever-present 'School of the Americas'), and this becomes a bore. More problematically, with Dave supposedly overwhelmed with cynicism and rage, this liberal moralising and prissiness about vice seem inapt. Whether it is Burke or Robicheaux getting old and grumpy, this boorishness threatens to derail the series. A weak entry, but hopefully just a blip, and not a terminal decline.

CRUSADER'S CROSS (2005)
In the summer of 1958, Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie are just out of high school. Jimmie and Dave get work with an oil company, laying out rubber cables in the bays and mosquito-infested swamps all along the Louisiana-Texas coastline. They spend their off time at Galveston Island, fishing at night on the jetties, the future kept safely at bay, the past drifting off somewhere behind them. But on the Fourth of July, change approaches in the form of Ida Durbin, a sweet-faced young woman with a lovely voice and a mandolin. Jimmie falls instantly in love with her. But Ida's not free to love - she's a prostitute, in hock to a brutal man called Kale, who won't let her go. Jimmie agrees to meet Ida at the bus depot, ready for the road to Mexico. But Ida never shows. Dave and Jimmie want to believe she skipped town, but they know, deep down, that Ida Durbin never got to leave. That was many years ago - before Dave Robicheaux began his long odyssey through bars and drunk tanks and skin joints of every stripe. Before the Philippines and Vietnam. Now, an older, well-worn Dave walks into Baptist Hospital to visit a man called Troy Bordelon, who wants to free himself of a dark secret before he dies. A bully and a sadist, he has a lot to confess to - but he chooses to talk about a young girl, a prostitute who he glimpsed briefly as a kid, bloodied and beaten, tied to a chair in his uncle's house. Dave realises he can't let the past go. Ida's killers are still out there. So he begins his journey into the past - back to the summer of 1958 and a girl called Ida Durbin.

A powerful return to form by Burke - raw, evocative and compelling. Poetic and terse, Burke's writing has rarely been better, and while the plot is less than memorable his authorial voice and evocation of character and mood remains unmatched. The master has returned to his matchless best and underlines why the Robicheaux series remains the standard by which all other crimes writers are judged.

PEGASUS DESCENDING (2006)
Dave Robicheaux left his drinking days behind him many years ago, but he still feels guilt over a tragic event he wasn't sober enough to prevent. Dallas Klein, a gambling addict and bar buddy of Dave's was killed in an armed robbery he'd been forced to engineer. Two decades later, several incidents in Dave's life link to those involved. First he meets Dallas's daughter, Trish, who keeps odd company and is blackballed by the local casinos. Then the supposed suicide of a young girl appears to be connected to the man Dallas owed money to. Dave's inability to let things alone gets him involved with two very powerful criminals, both who will stop at nothing to protect their sons. When a young black drug dealer gets on the wrong side of the boys, tensions run high and there are more needless deaths, and as Hurricane Katrina bears down on south Louisiana, Dave and old friend Clete Purcel must join forces to stop the violence and exact their own bloody revenge.

Among Burke's best Robicheaux novels - terse and eloquent, lyrical and brutal, bleak and romantic - this confirms why the Robicheaux books are the premier crime series. Burke is fearless in his delineation of human frailty, of good and evil - and his characters are some of the most vivid and poignant in fiction. His greatest creation is not the conflicted Robicheaux, or the panoply of flawed, and outright evil villains, but Robicheaux's primal sidekick Clete Purcel. Warm, funny and guilelessly amoral, he remains an irresistible creation and thankfully he is at the very centre of this explosive novel. Moody and evocative Burke returns to his favourite themes of the lies that poison families and how crimes can echo down the generations, and proves again why he is not only the finest exponent of crime fiction, but great writer who transcends genre. There are many pretenders but no one can touch the master for balls-out great writing.

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