James Lee Burke est un auteur américain réputé pour ses personnages profondément psychologiques et ses cadres atmosphériques. Ses romans policiers explorent des thèmes tels que la culpabilité, la rédemption et l'ambiguïté morale, tandis que ses protagonistes sont aux prises avec des démons personnels et les dures réalités de leur monde. Le style distinctif de Burke se caractérise par une prose lyrique et des observations pertinentes sur la nature humaine, offrant aux lecteurs une expérience riche et captivante. Son œuvre, profondément influencée par des géants de la littérature tels que Faulkner, explore les complexités de la vie en des temps troublés.
Entraîné dans une enquête déchirante sur le meurtre de sept jeunes femmes, Dave Robicheaux croit traquer un serial killer lorsque la mort d'une étudiante, bien différente des précédentes victimes, le désoriente. Alors que Clete commet une bavure, Alafair, sa fille, commence à fréquenter le rejeton d'un clan malfaisant.
" J'effaçai presque Ida Durbin de ma mémoire. Mais souvent le péché d'oubli, si c'est bien de cela qu'il s'agissait, est comme le fer rouillé d'une hache enfouie dans le coeur d'un arbre... il se retrouve un jour ou l'autre, lorsque les dents de la tronçonneuse finissent par mordre dedans. " La confession d'un ancien condisciple d'université, sur son lit de mort, ravive chez Robicheaux le souvenir d'une jeune femme qui a marqué sa jeunesse. Dans les années cinquante, époque d'une innocence à jamais enfuie, Dave Robicheaux et son frère Jimmie avaient rencontré Ida Durbin sur une plage de Galveston au Texas. Elle était ravissante et Jimmie, ignorant qu'elle travaillait dans un bordel lié à la mafia, en était tombé follement amoureux. Puis elle avait brusquement disparu, sans laisser de traces. Des décennies ont passé et Robicheaux se met à enquêter sur Ida Durbin, ayant la conviction qu'elle a été assassinée. Mais deux policiers au comportement menaçant lui font comprendre qu'il est dangereux de poser des questions sur cette affaire. Entre la série de meurtres horribles qui frappent La Nouvelle-Orléans et l'irruption du puissant Val Chalons et de sa soeur Honoria, Robicheaux doit, une fois encore, mener un combat contre des forces qui le dépassent, les forces du mal incarnées par les grandes familles de Louisiane depuis des générations.
A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS A routine assignment transporting two death-row prisoners to their execution 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 depths of New Orleans. He becomes irrevocably caught up in the nightmarish web surrounding Mafia don Tony Cardo and must pit himself against his own worst fears in order to survive. A STAINED WHITE RADIANCE A bullet shot through the window of Weldon Sonnier's house propels Dave Robicheaux back into the lives of a family he's not sure he wants to be reacquainted with. Weldon Sonnier's CIA-influenced past has led to dangerous connections. As Weldon puts himself in the line of fire, Lyle Sonnier, television evangelist and faith healer, reveals to Dave a violent family history that intersects menacingly with Dave's own. IN THE ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD When a movie crew arrives in New Iberia to shoot a Civil War epic, Dave Robicheaux finds that it's not just the bayou's living inhabitants that are being disturbed. As he hunts a sadistic killer targeting young prostitutes, evidence of an earlier murder is brought to light. The skeletal remains are the last echo of a crime Robicheaux himself witnessed almost forty years ago.
In his most ambitious work yet, "New York Times" bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man's unforgettable life. In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark. Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein--a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business
The narrator, an outsider to the reader's world, offers a unique perspective on a hidden drama that almost led to catastrophe. Eager to share this untold story, they promise insights into events that could have changed everything. The narrative hints at intrigue and suspense, suggesting that the tale is both personal and significant, revealing layers of complexity in a situation that remains largely unknown to the reader.
Dave Robicheaux is on the trail of a serial killer, while trying to protect his daughter from a boyfriend with a dark side, in the eighteenth novel in James Lee Burke's classic series.
After the devastating events recounted in THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN, Dave Robicheaux and his ex-partner in Homicide, Clete Purcel, head for the mountains and trout streams of Montana for some much-needed healing. However, while Montana might seem an unspoilt paradise peopled by men and women from an earlier, more innocent time in American history, Dave and Clete soon find that there are plenty of serpents in the garden too. The deaths of a couple of hikers suggest a perverted serial killer may be at work, while an escaped jailbird and his former tormentor are locked in a savage dance of revenge that is ultimately connected to the fortunes of a wealthy oil family hiding a terrible secret . . .
New York Times bestseller and 'one of the finest crime writer's America has ever produced' James Lee Burke returns with his latest masterpiece, the story of a father and son separated by war.
Trouble is rising in Montana's Bitterroot Valley and only one man is willing to stop it . . .
