In 1987, after having only one book published in fifteen years, James Lee Burke, at the suggestion of a friend, turned to 
writing crime fiction. In The Neon Rain, Burke introduced the world to a Cajun recovering alcoholic police detective named Dave Robicheaux and launched his career as a bestselling author. The first Robicheaux novel I read was the 1989 Edgar Award winning novel Black Cherry Blues. From that novel:
“. . . I had found the edge. The place where you unstrap all your fastenings to the earth, to what you are what you have been, where you flame out on the edge of the spheres, and the sun and moon become eclipsed and the world below is as dead and remote and without interest as if it were glazed with ice. ”
— James Lee Burke (Black Cherry Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Nove
After writing like that, I quickly went back and read The Neon Rain and Heaven’s Prisoner and in the last twenty years I’ve read all but one of the books. (Note to self – READ Burning Angel). The books are gritty and deal mostly with the underbelly of New Orleans and New Iberia Louisiana and while I’ve never been to New Iberia or New Orleans through Burke’s words, I feel that I’ve traveled many a back road, driven across levees and floated down many a Louisiana bayou and along the way I’ve watched as Dave chase his own personal demons, dealt with the murder of his wife Annie, friends who took the wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the law, the mob, the CIA and just about every other kind of underbelly cretin you can think of!
Throughout the books, Clete Purcell has always been by Dave’s his side usually taking things just a tad too far, like the time he poured cement into a mobster’s car. While Bootsie Dave’s wife, Alafair and her three-legged raccoon Tripod, Batiste and the Bait and Tackle shop have oftentimes provided comfort and a safe haven for Dave.
Yes, the list of memories goes on and on, from conversations with General John B Hood (In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead) in the Louisiana swamps, to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina in the The Tin Roof Blowdown and hopefully Mr Burke will keep creating those memorable characters and scenes for us for many more years. James Lee Burke is a national treasurer that any fan of crime fiction or just good fiction writing should read, and read, and read!!
Main Characterr: Dave Robicheaux, Hackberry Holland
Occupation: Detective
Location: New Iberia, New Orleans, LA
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James Lee Burke Books I’ve read…
Creole Belle (Dave Robicheaux, #19)
Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland, #3)
The Glass Rainbow (Dave Robicheaux, #18)
Crusader’s Cross (Dave Robicheaux, #14)
Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland, #2)
Swan Peak (Dave Robicheaux, #17)
The Neon Rain (Dave Robicheaux, #1)
Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux, #3)
A Morning for Flamingos (Dave Robicheaux, #4)
A Stained White Radiance (Dave Robicheaux, #5)
Heaven’s Prisoners (Dave Robicheaux, #2)
In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux, #6)
Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux, #7)
Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux, #9)
Sunset Limited (Dave Robicheaux, #10)
Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux, #11)
Jolie Blon’s Bounce (Dave Robicheaux, #12)
Last Car To Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux, #13)
Pegasus Descending (Dave Robicheaux, #15)
The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux, #16
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