James Lee Burke | |
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Born | Houston, Texas, U.S. | December 5, 1936
Occupation | Writer, novelist |
Education | University of Louisiana at Lafayette University of Missouri (BA, MA) |
Children | 4 (including Alafair Burke) |
Website | |
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James Lee Burke (born December 5, 1936) is an American author, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won Edgar Awards for his novels Black Cherry Blues (1990), Cimarron Rose (1998), and Flags on the Bayou (2024). [1] He has also been presented with the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin ( Heaven's Prisoners ) and then Tommy Lee Jones ( In the Electric Mist ).
Wirt Williams, reviewing Burke's first novel, Half of Paradise (1965), in the New York Times, compared his writing to Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernest Hemingway, but concluded "Mr. Burkes' literary forebear is Thomas Hardy." [2]
Burke's 1982 novel, Two for Texas, was made into a 1998 TV movie of the same name. Burke has also written five miscellaneous crime novels (including Two for Texas), two short-story collections, four books starring protagonist Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland, four books starring Billy Bob's cousin Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, and two books starring Weldon Avery Holland, grandson of legendary Texas lawman Hackberry Holland.
Burke was born in Houston, Texas, but spent most of his childhood on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and University of Missouri, receiving Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in English literature from the latter. [3]
He worked in a variety of jobs over the years, while books he had written were rejected, and books he had published went out of print. At various times, he worked as a truck driver for the U.S. Forest Service, as a newspaper reporter, as a social worker on Skid Row, Los Angeles, as a land surveyor in Colorado, in the Louisiana State unemployment system, and in the Job Corps in the Daniel Boone National Forest in eastern Kentucky. [4] [3]
He taught at the University of Missouri as a grad student, then at the University of Louisiana, the University of Montana, and Miami-Dade Community College, before settling in Wichita, Kansas to teach at Wichita State University in 1978. [5] [6]
Burke and his wife Pearl, née Pai Chu, [7] owned homes in Lolo, Montana and in New Iberia, Louisiana. They have four children, including Alafair Burke, a law professor [8] and best-selling crime writer. [9] [10] Daughter Pamala Burke McDavid died in 2020. [11] Extended family include cousins novelist Elizabeth Nell Dubus and author and actress DeLauné Michel. [12]
New Iberia is the largest city in and parish seat of Iberia Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The city of New Iberia is located approximately 21 miles southeast of Lafayette, and forms part of the Lafayette metropolitan statistical area in the region of Acadiana. The 2020 United States census tabulated a population of 28,555. New Iberia is served by Amtrak’s Sunset Limited, operating between Los Angeles and New Orleans. New Iberia has a major four lane highway, being U.S. 90, and has its own general aviation airfield, Acadiana Regional Airport. Scheduled passenger and cargo airline service is available via the nearby Lafayette Regional Airport located adjacent to U.S. 90 in Lafayette.
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced in the previous year.
Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. They are, perhaps, his most popular works. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.
Robert Crais is an American author of detective fiction and former screenwriter. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. His writing is influenced by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker and John Steinbeck. Crais has won numerous awards for his crime novels. Lee Child has cited him in interviews as one of his favourite American crime writers. The novels of Robert Crais have been published in 62 countries and are bestsellers around the world. Robert Crais received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award in 2006 and was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 2014.
Otto Penzler is an American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Heaven's Prisoners is a 1996 American dramatic crime thriller film directed by Phil Joanou and starring Alec Baldwin, Kelly Lynch, Mary Stuart Masterson, Teri Hatcher and Eric Roberts. It is based on a Dave Robicheaux homonymous novel by James Lee Burke. Harley Peyton and Scott Frank wrote the screenplay.
John Connolly is an Irish writer who is best known for his series of novels starring private detective Charlie Parker.
James Arthur Crumley was an American author of violent hardboiled crime novels and several volumes of short stories and essays, as well as published and unpublished screenplays. He has been described as "one of modern crime writing's best practitioners", who was "a patron saint of the post-Vietnam private eye novel" and a cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson. His book The Last Good Kiss has been described as "the most influential crime novel of the last 50 years."
Alafair S. Burke is an American crime novelist, professor of law, and legal commentator. She is a New York Times bestselling author of twenty crime novels, including The Ex, The Wife, and The Better Sister, and two series—one featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, and the other, Portland, Oregon, prosecutor Samantha Kincaid. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Jan Burke is an American author of novels and short stories. She is a winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Agatha Award for Best Short Story, the Macavity Award, and Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award.
Dave Robicheaux is a fictional character in a series of mystery novels by American crime writer James Lee Burke. He first appeared in The Neon Rain (1987).
Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won multiple awards including lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, and scholarship in the UK and the United States. In addition to translations into various European languages, his books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the "sustained excellence" of his work in the genre.
In the Electric Mist is a 2009 French/American mystery drama film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, and written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski based on the novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke; it stars Tommy Lee Jones in the lead role of Louisiana police detective Dave Robicheaux.
Adrian McKinty is a Northern Irish writer of crime and mystery novels and young adult fiction, best known for his 2020 award-winning thriller, The Chain, and the Sean Duffy novels set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He is a winner of the Edgar Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Macavity Award, the Ned Kelly Award, the Barry Award, the Audie Award, the Anthony Award and the International Thriller Writers Award. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
The Tin Roof Blowdown (2007) is a crime novel by American author James Lee Burke.
Pegasus Descending is a crime novel by James Lee Burke.
Heaven's Prisoners is a crime novel written by James Lee Burke and published by Simon & Schuster in 1988. The fictional work follows Dave Robicheaux, a retired police officer and army lieutenant, who finds himself in a situation where he must protect his wife and a plane-crash survivor from a local drug kingpin. Heaven's Prisoners is the second novel by James Lee Burke featuring Dave Robicheaux, and was adapted into a film in 1996.
Purple Cane Road is a crime novel by James Lee Burke.
A Private Cathedral is a novel by American author James Lee Burke, published in 2020. It is part of the Dave Robicheaux series, featuring the character in a complex narrative that blends crime with elements of the supernatural. Set against the backdrop of Louisiana's haunting landscapes, the novel delves into a centuries-old feud between two families and presents a unique blend of mystery and mysticism.
The New Iberia Blues is a crime and mystery novel by American author James Lee Burke. It is the twenty-second installment in the Dave Robicheaux series and is set in Louisiana. It was named one of the best crime novels of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review.