My novels range from coming-of-age to suspense. I was an award-winning crime and investigative reporter for the Columbus Dispatchfor 11 years. That background helps me with the investigative aspects of my books. I enjoy exploring the moral dilemmas often presented in real life. My characters all have morals, but I like putting them in compromising situations. Itās easy to sit back and judge others, but how far would you go to keep your own son out of jail? Would the love of your son get in the way of your morals? Itās never black or white. Most of life is spent dancing in and out of the vast gray area in the middle.
Dave Robicheaux is a New Iberia, Louisiana, sheriffās detective in a series by James Lee Burke. You donāt want to get on the wrong side of Dave. He is righteous, but flawed. He regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, struggles with nightmares of Viet Nam and other unseen demons, but has an acute sense of right and wrong. In Crusaderās Cross, his loyal sidekick, Cletus Prucell says of Dave, "He's got polka dot giraffes running around in his head, but he's the best guy I've ever known.ā Iām a Burke fan, and I like everything he writes. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, and Purple Cane Road are my personal favorites. In Electric Mist, Dave is drawn into a 40-year-old unsolved murder that he witnessed as a college freshman. In the midst of his investigation, Dave has regular conversations with the ghost of Confederate General John Bell Hood. Itās a great read.
The sixth in the New York Times bestselling Dave Robicheaux series delivers a heart-pounding bayou manhuntāand features āone of the coolest, earthiest heroes in thrillerdomā (Entertainment Weekly ).
When Hollywood invades New Iberia Parish to film a Civil War epic, restless specters waiting in the shadows for Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux are reawakenedāghosts of a history best left undisturbed.
Hunting a serial killer preying on the lawless young, Robicheaux comes face-to-face with the elusive guardians of his darkest tormentsā who hold the key to his ultimate salvation or a final, fatal downfall.
Cletus Purcell is Dave Robicheauxās sidekick and, for my money, one of the best characters in crime fiction. He and Dave were detectives together at the New Orleans Police Department. āThe Bobbsie Twins from homicide,ā as Cletus likes to call them. Cletus, who wears a porkpie hat and drives a pink Cadillac, is now a private detective. This guy has more character flaws than any human being on the planet, but he is an absolute loyal friend to Dave. While I love reading Burkeās books, I get as much pleasure from listening to Will Patton read the audiobooks and bring Cletus to life.
James Lee Burke's new novel, 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 dangerousā¦
In 2038 a devastating pandemic sweeps across the world. Two decades later, Britain remains the epicenter for the Fornax variant, annexed by a terrified global community.
David Malik is as careful as any man to avoid contact with the virus. But when his sister tests positive as an asymptomatic carrier,ā¦
Yeah, I know, naming Jack Reacher as one of the badasses of crime fiction is the equivalent of a six-inch putt. A gimme. Child has taken a totally implausible premiseāa six-foot-five former Army MP wandering around the United States and finding trouble with nothing but an ATM card in his pocketāand created one of the best characters in suspense literature. When Reacher is on the hunt, the results are never in doubt, which is why we love him. Heās the fullback coming through the line, time and time again, and no one can stop him. One reviewer of Childās books said that Reacher is never the underdog. Thatās a perfect description.
He is as close to untraceable as a person can get. A loner comfortable in his anonymity and solitude. So when a member of his old Army unit finds a way to contact him, he knows this has to be serious.
You do not mess with the Special Investigators.
In the past the elite team always watched each other's backs. Now one of them has shown up dead in the California desert and six more are missing.
Reacher's old buddies are in big trouble, and he can't let that go.
Walt Longmire is the sheriff of fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming. Longmire is a decorated Marine and played offensive line at the University of Southern California. Heās big, and he can brawl. He can be the cerebral Sherlock Holmes or Rambo, depending on the situation. In most of his books, Longmire teams up with Henry Standing Bear, but inDepth of Winter, Longmire is largely on his own as he sneaks into Mexico in search of his only child, Cady, who has been kidnapped by the leader of a Mexican drug cartel. Longmire is a bulldozer in his quest to rescue his daughter.
"It's the scenery-and the big guy standing in front of the scenery-that keeps us coming back to Craig Johnson's lean and leathery mysteries." -The New York Times Book Review
Walt journeys into the northern Mexican desert alone to save his daughter Cady, who has been kidnapped by the cartel
Welcome to Walt Longmire's worst nightmare. Winter is creeping closer, but for Sheriff Longmire this one is looking to be harsh in a way to which he is wholly unaccustomed. He has found himself in the remotest parts of the northern Mexican desert, a lawless place where no horse or carā¦
David Fletcher needs a surgeon, stat! But when he captures a British merchantman in the Caribbean, what he gets is Charley Alcott, an apprentice physician barely old enough to shave. Needs must, and Captain Fletcher takes the prisoner back aboard his ship with orders to do his best or heāllā¦
Seriously, whoās tougher than a Wyoming game warden? Boxās character in more than 20 novels is Joe Pickett, who, by the standards of most crime fiction protagonists, is... Whatās the word Iām looking for here? Oh, yeah, boring. Heās married, has three daughters, no major addictions or hang-ups. Box describes his character as someone who tries to ādo the right thing.ā I think thatās what makes him such a badass and likeable character. After all, itās not easy being a game warden when virtually everyone you encounter is armed. Nate Romanowski is Joeās sidekick. Heās a great second banana, but without the personality and capricious temperament of Cletus Purcell.
No motive, no suspect, no trace. Who doesn't want her found?
Joe Pickett is 300 miles from home, enduring the worst weather January in Wyoming can throw at you.
He's in the small mountain town of Saratoga, on the trail of a British woman who checked out of the remote ranch she was holidaying at and disappeared.
But the missing woman is only the beginning.
Something is not right in Saratoga. Why has the local game warden also disappeared? Why is local law enforcement spooked? Why is the new state governor taking such an interest in the case? Joe willā¦
Lester Yates is the notorious Egypt Valley Strangler, one of the countryās most prolific serial killers. Or, is he? Yates is two months from his date with the executioner when Ohio Attorney General Hutch Van Buren is presented with evidence that could exonerate him. But Yates is a political pawn, and forces exist that donāt want him exonerated. To do so could derail presidential aspirations and change the national political landscape. Yatesā execution will clear a wide political path for many influential people, including Van Buren, who must battle both the clock and a political machine of which he is a part.
A Strand Magazine review of The Sacrifice of Lester Yates, said, āA brilliant thriller by a master of the neo-noir thriller. This should be on your nightstand. Read it.ā
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunged off a waterfall to her death, leaving behind a legacy shrouded in secrets. Her great-niece Julia, a struggling journalist recovering from a divorce, seeks answers decades later.
Tasked with retrieving Dr. Greerās discoveryāa flower that could have world-changingā¦
Heās looking for the one thing sheās done with: family.
Brade Oliver arrives in Grand, Montana, looking for bloodāand answers. Genetic tests reveal that his biological family may reside in the small, western town, and heās on a mission to finally discover the one thing his adoptive family couldnāt giveā¦