Dave Robicheaux
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(334)
The Neon Rain
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 1 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Best-selling author James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels began with this first hard-hitting entry in the series. In The Neon Rain, Detective Robicheaux fishes a prostitute's corpse from a New Orleans bayou and finds that no one, not even the law, cares about a dead hooker.
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(209)
Heaven's Prisoners
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 2 of the Dave Robicheaux series
In Heaven's Prisoners, best-selling author James Lee Burke introduces the gritty, tough and compassionate former police officer Dave Robicheaux in our first novel of this blockbuster series. Burke's muscular and relentless prose brings characters and events to life with the battering energy of a Bayou thunderstorm. Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic, has retired to bayou country when a small plane full of passengers-and trouble-drops out of the sky near his boat. But as he rescues the only survivor, a girl he names Alafair, the crash soon plunges him into a netherworld of murder and deception. Trapped by events he cannot control, the usually quiet and gentle Robicheaux protects himself and his loved ones the only way he knows how: with a fist and a gun. Mark Hammer's impassioned narration brings an earthy vitality to Robicheaux and the complex characters who inhabit his world.
audiobook
(187)
Black Cherry Blues
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 3 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux had begun to put the pieces of his broken life together again when an old friend turned up on his doorstep, dredging up old memories and new threats.
audiobook
(158)
A Morning for Flamingos
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 4 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux felt the bone-grinding pain rip through his body as the .45 did its damage. Through the agonizing haze that enveloped him, he heard an almost inhuman laugh-the hideous, victorious cackling of Jimmie Lee Boggs-a sound he would never forget. It had started out as an ordinary prisoner transfer, then turned into a blood bath when the convicted murderer got hold of a gun. Robicheaux could still hear that contemptible laughter, replacing the horrors from 'Nam he relived every night, echoing in the still of his darkened bedroom. When Boggs is spotted in New Orleans, Robicheaux follows, joining a DEA sting operation in the Quarter. Poised for revenge, he prepares to face his fears and silence the laughter once and for all. But, in the murky water of the Pearl River, Robicheaux finds that some things are more important than sweet, simple revenge.
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(108)
A Stained White Radiance
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 5 of the Dave Robicheaux series
A bullet through a windowpane brings Robicheaux back in contact with the Sonnier family, childhood friends whose morality is scarred by a history of abuse. Welton, once a pilot for the CIA-backed Air America; Lyle, a television evangelist; and Drew, a girl-woman with a bitter past, form an extraordinarily close-knit family whose guarded secrets make it impossible for Robicheaux to protect them.
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(98)
A Stained White Radiance
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 5 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Cajun police detective Dave Robicheaux knows the Sonnier family of New Iberia - their connections to the CIA, the mob, and to a former Klansman now running for state office. And he knows their past - as dark and murky as a night on the Louisiana bayou.
An assassination attempt and the death of a cop draw Robicheaux into the Sonniers' dangerous web of madness, murder and incest. But Robicheaux has devils of his own. And they've come out of hiding to destroy the tormented investigator - and the people he holds most dear.
Filled with the usual Burke combination of brilliant action and a stunning novelistic theme, A Stained White Radiance will keep Burke's fans riveted - and win him many new ones.
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(94)
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 6 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux is dried out, back on the force and remarried. When the ghost of a long-dead Confederate general begins to haunt his latest murder case, Dave's new found peace is threatened with mayhem and madness.
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(49)
In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 6 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Past meets present in the Louisiana swamps. The image of the dead girl's body lingered in detective Dave Robicheaux's mind as he drove home. After seeing the young victim's corpse, the last thing he needed to come across was a drunk driver. But when he saw the Cadillac fishtail across the road, Robicheaux knew the driver was in trouble. What Dave didn't realize, was that by pulling the car over, he was opening his murder case wider than he could ever imagine. The driver, Elrod Sykes, in New Iberia to star in a movie, leads Dave to the skeletal remains of a black man that had washed up in the Atchafalaya swamp. So begins a mystery that takes Dave back to an unsolved murder - a murder that he witnessed in 1957. Haunted by the past as he confronts the gruesome present - day rape and murder of young prostitutes, Robicheaux must also contend with a new partner from the F.B.I., and the local criminal gentry. But for Dave, the answers he seeks lie somewhere in the bayou mist with the ghosts of soldiers long since forgotten... A masterwork of detective fiction, In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead is James Lee Burke's most suspenseful work to date.
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(21)
Mist
by James Lee Burke
read by Ron McLarty
Part 6 of the Dave Robicheaux series
A short story from one of the country's most-acclaimed and popular novelists James Lee Burke's story collection, Jesus Out To Sea.
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(44)
Dixie City Jam
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 7 of the Dave Robicheaux series
A forgotten Nazi sub brings old hatreds to the surface. They're out there, under the salt - the bodies of German seamen who used to lie in wait at the mouth of the Mississippi for unescorted American tankers sailing from the oil refineries of Baton Rouge out into the Gulf of Mexico. As a child, Dave Robicheaux had been haunted by the sailors' images; then, as a young college student, he'd discovered one of their sunken subs while scuba diving. Years later, in a New Orleans populated by desperate hustlers and millennium-watchers of all stripes, Robicheaux, a detective with the New Iberia sheriff's office, finds himself and his family at serious risk, stalked for his knowledge of a watery burial ground by a mysterious man named Will Buchalter - a man who believes that the Holocaust was one big hoax. A masterpiece of suspense, Dixie City Jam takes listeners deep into the human heart of darkness.
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(82)
Dixie City Jam
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 7 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Somewhere off the coast of Louisiana, an old Nazi submarine lies buried in the sands, hidden by thick seaweed and salty waters. Dave Robicheaux is the only person who has ever discovered it, and now Hippo Bimstine, New Orleans' largest mover and shaker, wants him to find it again.
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(7)
Burning Angel
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 8 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Sweet Pea Chaisson has parked his pink Cadillac convertible full of hookers in the parking lot of a convenience store in Spanish Lake, Louisiana. He's causing a commotion, but not because of the car or the women-his mother's coffin is sticking out of the trunk.
Welcome again to the world of Dave Robicheaux, the Bayou cop who works murder cases and a 12-step program with a unique mixture of gentleness and suppressed rage. On his beat in Iberia Parrish, ancient burial sites, a Vietnam war
diary, an old affair, and a street hustler are stirring up trouble. Dave needs to solve these overlapping puzzles, or he'll end up without a job-or his life.
Edgar Award–winning author James Lee Burke twines threads of the past and present to create unforgettable visions and characters.
audiobook
(74)
Burning Angel
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 8 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux, New Orleans detective, is puzzled when street hustler Sonny Boy Marsallus slips a Vietnam war diary into his hand. Soon old debts and ancient burial sites create a web of intrigue linking Iberia Parish to more dangerous territory than Dave can handle.
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(50)
Burning Angel
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 8 of the Dave Robicheaux series
A brutal legacy of cruelty and hate is awakened in the bayou. When Sonny Boy Marsallus returns to New Iberia after fleeing for Central America to avoid the wrath of the powerful Giacana family, his old troubles soon follow. Meanwhile Dave Robicheaux becomes entangled in the affairs of the Fontenot family, descendants of sharecroppers whose matriarch helped raise Dave as a child. They are in danger of losing the land they've lived on for more than a century. As Dave tries to discover who wants the land so badly, he finds himself in increasing peril from a lethal, rag tag alliance of local mobsters and a hired assassin with a shady past. And when a seemingly innocent woman is brutally murdered, all roads intersect, and Sonny Boy is in the middle. With the usual James Lee Burke combination of brilliant action and unforgettable characters, Burning Angel is the author at his best - showing that old hatreds and new ones are not that far apart.
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(18)
Cadillac Jukebox
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 9 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Bestselling author James Lee Burke returns to delight audiobook listeners who crave fast-paced crime fiction with Cadillac Jukebox. This thunderous and introspective audiobook-the ninth book of the award-winning series-pits the
earthy and robust Dave Robicheaux against forces of law and power far beyond his control.
When a racially motivated murder nearly three decades old churns back to the surface, Robicheaux is confronted by mob bosses, corrupt police chiefs and even dirtier politicians. Despite his efforts to stay clear of the action, he is inevitably
drawn into the center of the conflict as evidence points to the current resident of
the governor's mansion.
Can Robicheaux uncover the truth and stay one step ahead of the people who want him silenced?
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(8)
Cadillac Jukebox
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 9 of the Dave Robicheaux series
James Lee Burke, in his ninth Dave Robicheaux thriller, it's easy to see why. This taut, twisted tale of corruption in the Louisiana bayou truly brands Burke.
Aaron Crown comes from a long line of shady Cajun characters, and rumors of Klan ties swirl around his family-so his arrest for the murder of a black civil rights leader would seem to be an open and shut case. But when the man who worked hardest to put Crown away ascends to the governor's mansion, detective Dave Robicheaux begins to suspect that Aaron may be innocent of the crime. Soon key figures in high places start pressuring Dave to drop his investigation...but that only makes him more determined to uncover the truth at any cost.
audiobook
(65)
Cadillac Jukebox
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 9 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Best-selling author James Lee Burke returns to delight audiobook listeners who crave fast-paced crime fiction with Cadillac Jukebox. This thunderous and introspective audiobook-the ninth book of the award-winning series-pits the earthy and robust Dave Robicheaux against forces of law and power far beyond his control. When a racially-motivated murder nearly three decades old churns back to the surface, Robicheaux is confronted by mob bosses, corrupt police chiefs and even dirtier politicians. Despite his efforts to stay clear of the action, he is inevitably drawn into the center of the conflict as evidence points to the current resident of the governor's mansion. Can Robicheaux uncover the truth and stay one step ahead of the people who want him silenced? Narrator Mark Hammer inhabits Dave Robicheaux and his world with the visceral gusto of a bayou native. Filled with spicy Louisiana politics and shady deals, Cadillac Jukebox is a riveting listen.
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(4)
Sunset Limited
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer, Will Patton
Part 10 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Detective Dave Robicheaux returns to center stage in an incendiary new novel by James Lee Burke. A gripping tale of racial violence, class warfare, and the sometimes cruel legacy of Southern history, Sunset Limited is a stunning achievement, confirming Burke's place as one of America's premier stylists as well as master storytellers.
The forty-year-old crucifixion of a prominent labor leader named Jack Flynn remains an unsolved atrocity that has never been forgotten in New Iberia, Louisiana. When Flynn's daughter, Megan, a photojournalist drawn to controversial subjects, returns to the site of her father's murder, it quickly becomes clear that her family's bloodstained past will not stay buried. Megan gives her old friend Dave Robicheaux a tip about a small-time criminal named Cool Breeze Broussard, scarcely suspecting that the seemingly innocuous case will lead Robicheaux and his partner into the midst of a deadly conspiracy.
Combining brilliant prose, crackling suspense, and an exquisite sense of character and place, Sunset Limited is a wrenching tale of historic violence and soiled redemption that reveals one of America's finest novelists at his masterful best.
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(76)
Sunset Limited
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 10 of the Dave Robicheaux series
In the Dave Robicheaux mysteries, Edgar Award-winning and best-selling author James Lee Burke immerses his fans deep in the Louisiana underworld of cops, convicts, and con artists. With each intriguing case that lands on the police detective's desk, Dave continues his debate with the unpredictable forces that dwell within him. A journalist has asked Dave to help her investigate rumors of police brutality in the Iberia Parish jail. But since her father was murdered in the same jurisdiction years before, her interest in police affairs may be more personal than professional. Soon, Dave is finding it difficult to answer her questions. This journey through Dave Robicheaux's world, richly voiced by narrator Mark Hammer, is a truly riveting audio experience. Beginning with a crucifixion and closing with the glow of sunlight through bayou trees, each scene, brutal and beautiful, lingers on the ear.
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(68)
Purple Cane Road
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 11 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass on to the son. But what was his mother's legacy? Dead to him since his youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Robicheaux's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of a whiskey-driven father. But deep down, Dave still feels the loss of his mother and knows that the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end. While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks if he is the son of Mae Guillory, the whore a bunch of cops murdered thirty years ago. Her body was dumped in the bayou bordering Purple Cane Road, and the cops who left her there are still on the job. Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past, and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son. Purple Cane Road has the dimensions of a classic -- passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy -- wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.
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Purple Cane Road
by James Lee Burke
read by Nick Sullivan
Part 11 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux has spent his life confronting the age-old adage that the sins of the father pass on to the son. But what was his mother's legacy? Dead to him since his youth, Mae Guillory has been shuttered away in the deep recesses of Robicheaux's mind. He's lived with the fact that he would never really know what happened to the woman who left him to the devices of a whiskey-driven father. But deep down, Dave still feels the loss of his mother and knows that the infinite series of disappointments in her life could not have come to a good end.
While helping out an old friend, Dave is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks if he is the son of Mae Guillory, the whore a bunch of cops murdered thirty years ago. Her body was dumped in the bayou bordering Purple Cane Road, and the cops who left her there are still on the job.
Dave's search for his mother's killers leads him to the darker places in his past, and solving this case teaches him what it means to be his mother's son. Purple Cane Road has the dimensions of a classic -- passion, murder, and nearly heartbreaking poignancy -- wrapped in a wonderfully executed plot that surprises from start to finish.
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(52)
Jolie Blon's Bounce
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 12 of the Dave Robicheaux series
When a beautiful teenage girl is killed, the victim of a particularly savage rape, New Iberia, Louisiana police detective Dave Robicheaux senses from the very start of the investigation that the most likely suspect -- Tee Bobby Hulin -- is not the actual killer. Though a drug addict and general ne'er-do-well, Hulin doesn't fit the profile for this brutal crime. But when another body turns up -- a drugged-out prostitute who is the daughter of a local mafia bigwig -- all clues point to Tee Bobby Hulin. The dead girl's father sets out to find -- and punish -- the killer. Before Robicheaux can bring the killer or killers to justice, he battles a painkiller addiction, a habit brought on by a humiliating beating he suffers at the hands of a diabolical character known only as Legion. Once the overseer on a local sugarcane plantation, Legion scrapes by through doing odd jobs. In temperament, he's still the malevolent bully, seemingly possessed with supernatural skills of survival. When Robicheaux's longtime buddy Clete Purcel drops by New Iberia for a visit, he is quickly drawn into the struggle between evil forces, including Jimmy Dean Styles, a black man intent on maintaining his empire of corruption, Joe Zeroski, a trailer park mafioso with palatial aspirations -- and Legion Guidry in whom Robicheaux faces an enemy unlike any he has ever known. And soon, what began as a duel of wits turns into a dance of death. Gothic, dense, brutal, touching, and always compelling, Jolie Blon's Bounce is classic storytelling from a writer who has been dubbed "the Faulkner of crime fiction."
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Jolie Blon's Bounce
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 12 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux is back in this powerful bestseller that takes him into the underbelly of New Iberia's mafia to solve the brutal murder of two teenage girls.
When a beautiful teenage girl is killed, New Iberia police detective Dave Robicheaux senses that the most likely suspect, Tee Bobby Hulin, is not the actual killer. Though a drug addict and general neer-do-well, Hulin just doesn't fit the profile for this kind of crime. He's a Cajun blues singer (one of his songs is titled 'Jolie Blon's Bounce'), and he's been raised by his grandmother Ladice Hulin, a proud and strong-willed black woman.
But when there's another, similar murder-this victim a drugged-out prostitute who happens to be the daughter of one of the local mafia bigwigs-the cries for an arrest become too loud to ignore. The mafia figure, however, prefers to take matters in his own hand and sets out to find-and punish-the killer himself. Once again, Tee Bobby Hulin seems the most likely suspect.
Added to the mix of characters on the good guy side of the balance sheet is Clete Purcel, a long-time buddy of Robicheaux's and a confirmed boozer and womanizer. Coming to New Iberia for a visit, Clete is quickly drawn into the struggle between the various forces of evil in the town: Jimmy Dean Styles, a black man intent on maintaining his empire of corruption; Joe Zeroski, a trailer-park mafioso with palatial aspirations-and of course Legion Guidrey, the devil incarnate.
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Jolie Blon's Bounce
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 12 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux, the Louisiana cop who's easily one of the most complex and compelling protagonists in mystery fiction, confronts his own demons as well as a brutal adversary who might be the devil himself in this dark thriller. Robicheaux doesn't believe Tee Bobby Hulin, a drug addicted musical genius, has murdered a prostitute and a teenager. Burke looks to the lower depths to find his villain, and the creature that emerges, as if from some primordial swamp, strikes a new kind of fear in everyone he encounters.
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(55)
Last Car to Elysian Fields
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 13 of the Dave Robicheaux series
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, and 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. 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.
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(7)
Last Car to Elysian Fields
A Novel
by James Lee Burke
read by Mark Hammer
Part 13 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Sheriff Dave Robicheaux returns to New Orleans to investigate the beating of a controversial Catholic priest and murder of three teenage girls in this intense, atmospheric entry in the New York Times bestselling series.
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 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.
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 Burke in top form in the kind of lush atmospheric thriller.
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(16)
Crusader's Cross
A Dave Robicheaux Novel
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 14 of the Dave Robicheaux series
For Detective Dave Robicheaux, memories of a strange and violent summer from his youth are best left alone.
But a dying man's confession forces Robicheaux to resurrect a decades-old mystery with a missing woman at its heart. Her name may or may not have been Ida Durbin, and Robicheaux's half-brother, Jimmie, paid a brutal price for entering her world. Now the truth will plunge Robicheaux into the manipulations of New Orleans' wealthiest family, into a complex love affair of his own, and into hot pursuit of a killer expanding his territory beyond the Big Easy at a frightening pace.
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(44)
Crusader's Cross
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 14 of the Dave Robicheaux series
For Dave Robicheaux, life in Louisiana is filled with haunting memories of the past -- images from Vietnam, the violent streets of New Orleans, and his own troubled youth. 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, Honoria, a disturbed and deeply alluring woman, Robicheaux is soon involved not only with the Chalons family but with the murderous energies of the New Orleans underworld. Also, he meets and finds himself drawn into a scandalous relationship with a remarkable Catholic nun. Brilliant, brooding, and filled with the author's signature lyricism, Jim Burke's latest novel is a darkly suspenseful work of literature.
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Pegasus Descending
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 15 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Dave Robicheaux is back in a dangerous mystery that involves stolen money, gritty casinos, and a beautiful girl with connections to his past.
When a nice young woman named Trish Klein blows into Louisiana, passing hundred-dollar bills in local casinos, detective Dave Robicheaux senses a storm bearing down on his new life of contentment... Twenty-five years ago, lost in a drunken haze in Florida, Robicheaux was too far gone to save his friend and fellow 'Nam vet Dallas Klein, murdered in cold blood for gambling debts. Now, the arrival of Dallas's daughter opens a door locked long ago, and extracting her motives points Robicheaux to the suicide of a local "good girl" pulled into a vortex of power, sex, and death. It's Robicheaux's most personally painful case-a roller coaster of passion, surprise, and regret-and it may be his deadliest.
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Pegasus Descending
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 15 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Detective Dave Robicheaux is facing the most painful and dangerous case of his career. A troubled young woman breezes into his hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana. She happens to be the daughter of Robicheaux's onetime best friend -- a friend he witnessed gunned down in a bank robbery, a tragedy that forever changed Robicheaux's life. In Pegasus Descending, James Lee Burke again explores psyches as much as evidence, and tries to make sense of human behavior as well as of his characters' crimes. Richly atmospheric, frightening in its sudden violence, and replete with the sort of puzzles only the best crime fiction creates, Burke's latest novel is an unforgettable roller coaster of passion, surprise, and regret. The twists begin when Trish Klein -- the only offspring of Robicheaux's Vietnam-era buddy -- starts passing marked hundred-dollar bills in local casinos. Is she a good kid gone bad? A victim's child seeking revenge? A promiscuous beauty seducing everyone good within her grasp? And how does her behavior relate to the apparent suicide of another "good" girl, an ace student named Yvonne Darbonne, who apparently participated in a college frat orgy before her death? Can Robicheaux make his peace with the demons that have haunted him since his friend's murder so many years ago? Can he figure out how a local mobster fits into all the schemes and deaths? Can Robicheaux's life be whole again when it has been shattered by so much tragedy? Once again, Burke proves why he is the virtual poet laureate of southern Louisiana, and why his novels, especially those featuring Dave Robicheaux, stand as brilliant literature and entertainment for our time.
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The Tin Roof Blowdown
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 16 of the Dave Robicheaux series
In the waning days of summer, 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana. This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As James Lee Burke's new novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, and no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city. In a singular style that defies genre, James Lee Burke has created a hauntingly bleak picture of life in New Orleans after Katrina. Filled with complex characters and depictions of people at both their best and worst, The Tin Roof Blowdown is not only an action-packed crime thriller, but a poignant story of courage and sacrifice that critics are already calling Burke's best work.
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(66)
Swan Peak
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 17 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Trouble follows Dave Robicheaux. Swan Peak finds Detective Robicheaux far from his New Iberia roots, attempting to relax in the untouched wilderness of rural Montana. He, his wife, and his buddy Clete Purcell have retreated to stay at an old friend's ranch, hoping to spend their days fishing and enjoying their distance from the harsh, gritty landscape of Louisiana post-Katrina. But the serenity is soon shattered when two college students are found brutally murdered in the hills behind where the Robicheauxs and Purcell are staying. They quickly find themselves involved in a twisted and dangerous mystery involving a wealthy, vicious oil tycoon, his deformed brother and beautiful wife, a sexually deviant minister, an escaped con and former country music star, and a vigilante Texas gunbull out for blood. At the center of the storm is Clete, who cannot shake the feeling that he is being haunted by the ghosts from his past -- namely Sally Dio, the mob boss he'd sabotaged and killed years before. In this expertly drawn, gripping story, Burke deftly weaves intricate, engaging plotlines and original, compelling characters with his uniquely graceful prose. He transcends genre yet again in the latest thrilling addition to his New York Times bestselling series.
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(50)
The Glass Rainbow
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 18 of the Dave Robicheaux series
James Lee Burke's eagerly awaited new novel finds Detective Dave Robicheaux back in New Iberia, Louisiana, and embroiled in the most harrowing and dangerous case of his career. Seven young women in neighboring Jefferson Davis Parish have been brutally murdered. While the crimes have all the telltale signs of a serial killer, the death of Bernadette Latiolais, a high school honor student, doesn't fit: she is not the kind of hapless and marginalized victim psychopaths usually prey upon. Robicheaux and his best friend, Clete Purcel, confront Herman Stanga, a notorious pimp and crack dealer whom both men despise. When Stanga turns up dead shortly after a fierce beating by Purcel, in front of numerous witnesses, the case takes a nasty turn, and Clete's career and life are hanging by threads over the abyss. Adding to Robicheaux's troubles is the matter of his daughter, Alafair, on leave from Stanford Law to put the finishing touches on her novel. Her literary pursuit has led her into the arms of Kermit Abelard, celebrated novelist and scion of a once prominent Louisiana family whose fortunes are slowly sinking into the corruption of Louisiana's subculture. Abelard's association with bestselling ex-convict author Robert Weingart, a man who uses and discards people like Kleenex, causes Robicheaux to fear that Alafair might be destroyed by the man she loves. As his daughter seems to drift away from him, he wonders if he has become a victim of his own paranoia. But as usual, Robicheaux's instincts are proven correct and he finds himself dealing with a level of evil that is greater than any enemy he has confronted in the past. Set against the backdrop of an Edenic paradise threatened by pernicious forces, James Lee Burke's The Glass Rainbow is already being hailed as perhaps the best novel in the Robicheaux series.
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Creole Belle
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 19 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Set against the events of the Gulf Coast oil spill, Creole Belle finds Dave Robicheaux languishing in a New Orleans recovery unit since surviving a bayou shoot-out. The detective's body is healing; it's his morphine-addled mind that conjures spectral visions of Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman who in reality has gone missing. An iPod with an old blues song left by his bedside turns Robicheaux into a man obsessed…And as oil companies assign blame after an epic disaster threatens the Gulf's very existence, Robicheaux unearths connections between tragedies both global and personal-and faces down forces that can corrupt and destroy the best of men.
audiobook
(80)
Light of the World
by James Lee Burke
read by Will Patton
Part 20 of the Dave Robicheaux series
Louisiana Sherriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux and his longtime friend and partner Clete Purcel are vacationing in Montana's spectacular Big Sky country when a series of suspicious events leads them to believe their lives-and the lives of their families-are in danger. In contrast to the tranquil beauty of Flathead Lake and the colorful summertime larch and fir unspooling across unblemished ranchland, a venomous presence lurks in the caves and hills, intent on destroying innocent lives. First, Alafair Robicheaux is nearly killed by an arrow while hiking alone on a trail. Then Clete's daughter, Gretchen Horowitz, whom readers met in Burke's previous bestseller Creole Belle, runs afoul of a local cop, with dire consequences. Next, Alafair thinks she sees a familiar face following her around town-but how could convicted sadist and serial killer Asa Surette be loose on the streets of Montana? Surrette committed a string of heinous murders while capital punishment was outlawed in his home state of Kansas. Years ago, Alafair, a lawyer and novelist, interviewed Surette in prison, aiming to prove him guilty of other crimes and eligible for the death penalty. Recently, a prison transport van carrying Surette crashed and he is believed dead, but Alafair isn't so sure. Light of the World is a harrowing novel that examines the nature of evil and pits Dave Robicheaux against the most diabolical villain he has ever faced.
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