27 December 2021
James Lee Burke occupies a small room in the world of American literature. Joined by only a few contemporaries and predecessors, he writes books that provide entertainment and suspense, but also possess the rare capacity to alter the reader's perception of art, history, and the most intractable mysteries of life itself.
As the author of more than 40 books, he is astoundingly prolific. Readers around the world have fallen in love with his tales of detective Dave Robicheaux, who solves homicides in New Iberia, Louisiana. Far more than mere police procedurals, Robicheaux's cases, in large part due to the Milton-esque poetic prose of Burke, have a grand philosophical and theological sweep.
