James Lee Burke’s fiction is intense with autobiographical roots that entangle the plot and ensnare the reader. In his newest fiction White Doves At Morning, he has departed from his long-running contemporary works featuring gritty detectives Dave Robicheaux and Billy Bob Holland, to write about the Civil War, based on his own family history. But his most well-known character (Robicheaux) has features in common with the author. Both live in New Iberia, Louisiana and have a daughter named Alafair.

In Cimmarron Rose, Billy Bob Holland, ex-Texas Ranger turned attorney, pours over his great-grandfather’s journals—based in fact on Burke’s own ancestor, a drover and gunfighter on the Chisolm Trail. In an interview, Burke said, “That series really returns to two earlier novels I’d published about the Holland family: Two for Texas and Lay Down My Sword and Shield. The Hollands were my mother’s family. I didn’t even change names.”

Born in Houston, Texas, in 1936, Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast. Today he and his wife live in Missoula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute and later received a B. A. Degree in English and an M. A. 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, and instructor in the U. S. Job Corps.

He and his wife Pearl met in graduate school and have been married for forty-three years. They have four children: Jim Jr., an assistant U.S. Attorney; Andree, a school psychologist; Pamala, a TV ad producer; and Alafair, a law professor and novelist whose first novel is a mystery, Judgement Calls (2003).

Burke has won two Edgars for Best Crime Novel of the Year. He also recieved a Breadloaf and Guggenheim Fellowship. Two of his novels, Heaven’s Prisoners and Two For Texas, have been made into motion pictures. His novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was rejected 111 times over a period of nine years, and upon publication by Louisiana State University Press was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Combining brilliant storytelling with vivid descriptions of human and natural landscapes, Burke delves into contentious issues, such as racial violence, class warfare and the history of the South. In all his novels, he depicts the squalid underbelly of American society and evokes a fallen world in which the gap between blacks and whites, the haves and have-nots grows ever wider.

Dave Robicheaux Series

Dave Robicheaux is the Cajun detective, Vietnam vet, who runs a fishing camp in New Iberia, Louisiana and is, as Burke says, “always on the side of those who have no voice or power.”

The Neon Rain (1987). This a case of a young prostitute whose body is found in a bayou. The story involves drug lords, arms’ smugglers and a Nicaraguan gang that is terrorizing the city.

Heaven’s Prisoners (1988). Robicheaux has left New Orleans with his wife for the tranquil beauty of Louisiana’s bayous, but a plane crash on the Gulf brings a young girl into his life–and with her comes a netherworld of murder, deception and home-grown crime.

Black Cherry Blues (1989) won of the 1990 Edgar Award. In the story, Robicheaux is pursued by a psychopath and flees his home on the Bayou Teche, in the heart of Louisiana, to find a new life in Montana. **

Morning for Flamingos (1990) finds Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux rejoining the New lberia police force. He is critically wounded, and caught up in the lethal undercurrents of a mob double-cross. **

Stained White Radiance (1992) features the murder of a local cop, drawing Dave into painful conflicts of the Sonnier family with whom he grew up near the bayous. **

The Electric Mist with Confederate Dead (1993). When Hollywood shoots a Civil War movie in the New Iberia parish, Robicheaux tries to contain local dissension that arises because the movie company’s money is making its way into the community. **

Burning Angel (1995). Robichaux confronts evils: age-old injustices based on race and class; the legacies suffered by modern-day mercenaries for their sins in Vietnam and Central America; and the New Orleans mob. **

Cadillac Jukebox (1996). Robicheaux must confirm the guilt of redneck Aaron Crown in the killing of a civil rights leader back in the 1960s, and discover what the Crown’s recent arrest has to do with an upcoming gubernatorial election. His task becomes mired in the history and inbred politics of New Iberia and, is thwarted by a ghoulish hit man who crawls out of the swamps to silence police informants. **

Sunset Limited (1998) features a string of crimes in which all clues point back to the unsolved murder of a man named Jack Flynn who was tortured in an abandoned barn and left to die, forty years ago. **

Purple Cane Road (2000). In this powerhouse of a thriller, Robicheaux faces his most personal case yet, when a pimp puts him on the trail of the truth behind his mother’s long-ago disappearance. **

Julie Blon’s Bounce (2002) involves two murders–one of a innocent teenage girl and the other of a prostitute who is related to the mob. The main suspect is Tee Bobby Hulin, a gifted musician who seems to be on the road to self imposed ruin. **,***

Billy Bob Holland Series

Holland is an ex-Texas Ranger, now lawyer, wracked by guilt over the murder of his partner. He is a man “born with a legacy of violence,” according to his creator.

Cimarron Rose (1997) finds Holland defending his illegitimate son, Lucas Smothers, on a murder rap and argues with the ghost of his slain Ranger partner. **

Heartwood (1999) Billy Bob Holland, defense attorney and former Texas Ranger, defends an utterly hapless man, who is accused, by the most influential character in town, of taking a historically significant watch and $300,000 in bearer’s bonds. **

Bitterroot (2001) Billy Bob Holland returns to Bitterroot Valley, Montana to help a friend battle a mining company that threatens the area’s economy. **,***

Non-series Novels

Lay Down My Sword and Shield (1971)

Two for Texas (1982)

The Lost Get-Back Boogie (1986)

A Present for Santa (1986) (by Jim Burke) *

To the Bright and Shining Sun (1989)

Half of Paradise (1995)

White Doves at Morning (2002)

Short Stories

The Convict and other Stories (1985) *

*Please request at the Adult Information Services Desk
**Also available as a cassette audio book
***Also available as a CD audio book