BlackHat Mystery Bookstore
James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke in a white cowboy hat in 2012

Dave Robicheaux mystery series
Billy Bob Holland mystery series
Sheriff Holland mystery series

"It's the great advantage today of having a classical education: almost no one else does.
It doesn't exist anymore. So I've been taking plots from Milton, Shakespeare, Elizabethan
theater, Greek mythology, and the Bible for years and nobody notices!"
— James Lee Burke

          B I O
          t e x t
          h e r e

James Lee Burke lives in Louisiana and in Missoula, Montana

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

official James Lee Burke website
James Lee Burke entry at Wikipedia
browse James Lee Burke Store at Amazon
James Lee Burke's credits [since 1996] at Internet Movie Database

Dave Robicheaux Mystery Series

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"The Neon Rain" [#1=Henry Holt 1987]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Heaven's Prisoners" [#2=Henry Holt 1988]
Rural bait shop owner Dave Robicheaux rescues a little girl from a plane crashed into a swamp; when a D.E.A. agent noses around, the former New Orleans P.D. detective starts asking questions of a local drug lord, and Dave's wife is attacked in their bayou home.

"Heaven's Prisoners" feature film [New Line Cinema May 1996]
Directed by Phil Joanou; starring Alec Baldwin, Kelly Lynch, Mary Stuart Masterson,
Eric Roberts, Teri Hatcher, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Badja Djola & Samantha Lagpacan
New Line Home Video color DVD [10/2003] for $5.79
New Line Home Video color VHS [5/97] out of prodn/many used
W.E.A./Atlantic soundtrack CD [5/96] out of prodn/used
full credits from IMDb
27"x40" poster from Amazon for $17.95
11"x17" poster from Amazon for $9.99

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Black Cherry Blues" [#3=Little, Brown 1989]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Morning For Flamingoes" [#4=1990]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"A Stained White Radiance" [#5=Hyperion 1992]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead" [#6=Hyperion 1993]

In The Electric Mist feature film starring Tommy Lee Jones "In The Electric Mist" feature film [2009 video release]
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier; starring Tommy Lee Jones, Justina Machado, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Kelly Macdonald, Mary Steenburgen, Alana Locke, Ned Beatty, James Gammon, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Levon Helm, Buddy Guy & Julio Cedillo
Image Ent. widescreen color Blu-ray [3/2009] for $22.49
Image Ent. widescreen color DVD [3/2009] for $7.49
full credits at IMDb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Dixie City Jam" [#7=Hyperion 1994 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Burning Angel" [#8=Hyperion 1995 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Cadillac Jukebox" [#9=Hyperion 1996 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Sunset Limited" [#10=Doubleday 1998 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Purple Cane Road" [#11=Random House 2000 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Jolie Blon's Bounce" [#12=S&S 2002 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Last Car To Elysian Fields" [#13=S&S 2003 N.Y. Times bestseller]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Crusader's Cross" [#14 2005 N.Y. Times bestseller]
Dave gets his job back as deputy sheriff to help solve a string of murders. The deathbed confession of a childhood friend opens up a mystery about his brother's long-ago first love, a prostitute in 1958 Texas.
Pocket mass pb [7/2006] for $7.99
S&S 9½x6½ hardcover [7/2005] for $17.13
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Pegasus Descending" [#15 2006 N.Y. Times bestseller]
A young grifter claiming to be the daughter of Dallas Klein shows up, spreads around counterfeit money, and baits Whitey Bruxal, the aging mob boss who ordered Dallas killed 25 years before. (Dave and Dallas were N.O.P.D. partners, and Dave is haunted from being unable to prevent Dallas's death because Dave was plastered that night.)
Pocket Star mass pb [8/2007] for $7.99
S&S 9¼x6¼ hardcover [7/2006] for $15.60
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"The Tin Roof Blowdown" [#16 2007 N.Y. Times bestseller]
The author vents his anger at human incompetence and nature's destruction during and after Hurricane Katrina, and especially the horrific effect on his beloved New Orleans. The plot involves finding a missing priest and a looter who ransacked the home of a Mafia boss.
Pocket mass pb [6/2008] for $7.99
S&S 9¼x6¼ hardcover pb [7/2007] for $17.16
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Swan Peak" [#17 2008]
While on a fishing trip to Montana with Dave, P.I. pal Clete Purcell recognizes a security man for a Texas oil billionaire as an associate of mob boss Sally Dee, killed years before in a plane crash. Then two college kids from Montana are murdered near their fishing cabin, a Texas prison guard chasing an escaped convict shows up, and Dave's post-Katrina vacation is halted.
S&S 9¼x6½ hardcover [7/2008] for $15.57
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"The Glass Rainbow" [#18 July 2010]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Creole Belle" [#19 July 2012]
Creole Belle mystery novel by James Lee Burke (Dave Robicheaux) Dave lies in the hospital in New Orleans recovering from a bullet in the back, enduring morphine dreams, when a young woman visits and leaves him an iPod. But the woman disappeared several weeks ago and nobody believes that she stopped by to comfort Dave. Then Dave learns that the girl's sister has turned up dead inside a block of ice floating off the coast . . .
Kindle Edition from Simon & Schuster Digital [7/2012] for $12.59
Pocket Books mass pb [8/2013] for $8.99
Simon & Schuster 9¼x6 hardcover [7/2012] for $20.58

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Light of The World" [#20 = 2013]
Light of the World mystery novel by James Lee Burke (Dave Robicheaux) Louisiana detectives Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel return to the Montana hill
country setting of 2008's Swan Peak, along with their two scrappy daughters.
Kindle Edition from Simon & Schuster Digital Sales [7/2013] for $12.60
Orion 9¼x6 pb [7/2013] out of print/used
Simon & Schuster 9x6 hardcover [7/2013] for $15.97

Billy Bob Holland Mystery Series

"Cimarron Rose" [#1=Hyperion 1997 N.Y. Times bestseller]
"Heartwood" [#2=Doubleday 1999]
"Bitterroot" [#3=S&S 2001 N.Y. Times bestseller]
"In The Moon of Red Ponies" [#4=2004 N.Y. Times bestseller]

Sheriff Hackberry Holland Mystery Series
Burke's first novel featuring Sheriff Hackberry Holland of South Texas was published in 1971
(before the Robicheaux books), the second and third were published in 2009 & 2011.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Lay Down My Sword and Shield" [Thomas Y. Crowell 1971]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Rain Gods" [2009]
The discovery of a mass grave of nine Thai women bring F.B.I. agents and I.C.E. agents after a professional killer and others who are targeting two witnesses to the massacre, a drunken Iraq War vet and his innocent girfriend.
Pocket Star mass pb [5/2010] for $9.99
S&S 9¼x6½ hardcover [7/2009] out of print/used
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Feast Day of Fools: A Novel" [2011]
Feast Day of Fools mystery novel by James Lee Burke The story begins with torture and dismemberment in the Texas desert by a psychopath named Krill, whose planned second victim manages to escape; Holland's investigation leads to a woman who shelters illegal immigrants and to serial killer Preacher Jack Collins, who survived the previous book.
Simon & Schuster hardcover [9/2011] for $14.99
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Wayfaring Stranger: A Novel" [2014]
Historical novel rather than a genre mystery, a prequel about Texan Weldon Avery Holland who survives a shootout with Bonnie & Clyde,
later survives the Battle of the Bulge in Europe, then returns to Texas just in time for the oil boom.
http://www.amazon.com/Wayfaring-Stranger-James-Lee-Burke-ebook/dp/B00HB62NII/
http://www.amazon.com/Wayfaring-Stranger-James-Lee-Burke/dp/1476710791/ [7/2014]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"House of The Rising Sun: A Holland Family Novel" [12/2015]
http://www.amazon.com/House-Rising-Sun-Holland-Family-ebook/dp/B00V3L92DG/
http://www.amazon.com/House-Rising-Sun-Holland-Family/dp/1501107135/ mass pb [8/2016] 8/2016
http://www.amazon.com/House-of-the-Rising-Sun/dp/1409163458/
http://www.amazon.com/House-Rising-Sun-Holland-Family/dp/1501107100/

Other Books

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"Half of Paradise" [Houghton Mifflin 1965]

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"To The Bright and Shining Sun" [Scribner's 1970]
http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Shining-Sun-James-Burke-ebook/dp/B003VPWVV2/
http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Shining-Sun-James-Burke/dp/1476708525/

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Two For Texas" [Pocket Books 1982]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"The Convict & Other Stories" [LSU Press 1985]
The Convict & Other Stories collection by James Lee Burke Kindle Edition from Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster Digital Sales [7/2010] for $9.99
Pocket Books 8¼x5¼ pb [3/2009] for $15.00
Voice mass pb [8/2000] out of print/many used
★ ★ ★ ★ ★