Just in case you’re wondering, we’ll be re-running some of our best and most popular book reviews every other week from now on. They will be described as our Legacy Mysterious Book Reports. Send us a quick request if you have a favorite that you’d like to see again and we’ll do our best to re-publish it. Legacy Mysterious Book Report No. 8 Published May 16, 2022 Every
Every Cloak Rolled In Blood Mysterious Book Report No. 490 by John Dwaine McKenna Every Cloak Rolled In Blood, (Simon & Schuster, $27.00, 288 pages ISBN 978-1-9821-9659-2), by Mystery Writers of America Grand Master James Lee Burke, is his 50th novel and most unique ever . . . it’s autobiographical in nature, a heart-wrenching lament in honor of his daughter Pamala, who, in August 2020, died unexpectedly while still
A Private Cathedral Mysterious Book Report No. 412 by John Dwaine McKenna Whenever CWA Grand Master and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient James Lee Burke brings forth a new work of fiction, the world of mystery, thriller and crime readers and writers sits up and takes notice. We know it will be lyrically written and thought provoking . . . as well as exciting, violent and philosophical . . . all
A Private Cathedral Mysterious Book Report No. 412 by John Dwaine McKenna Whenever CWA Grand Master and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient James Lee Burke brings forth a new work of fiction, the world of mystery, thriller and crime readers and writers sits up and takes notice. We know it will be lyrically written and thought provoking . . . as well as exciting, violent and philosophical . . . all
The New Iberia Blues Mysterious Book Report No. 365 by John Dwaine McKenna Whenever a new James Lee Burke novel comes out, everyone celebrates. The publishers and agents are happy because they’re assured of another commercial success, as are the bookstores, who know that his legions of fans will be calling or dropping by to get a copy. Crime fiction, mystery and thriller enthusiasts will be smiling in anticipation
Robicheaux by James Lee Burke Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 445 pages, ISBN 978-1-5011-7684-3 Whenever a new book by James Lee Burke is released, I can’t wait to get my hands on it and promptly read it cover-to-cover. It’s been that way since the early 1990s, when I heard him speak on NPR about a character he’d created; a fictional Cajun detective from New Iberia, Louisiana. He was unique, this
The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 382 pages, ISBN 978-1-5011-0720-7 There’s a time in everyone’s life that only lasts for a few weeks of a certain special summer that many of us look back upon with nostalgia, affection, and sometimes, a genuine longing. Filtered through the long lens of a half century, we remember those days and weeks and months during the ‘50s as
House of the Rising Sun by James Lee Burke Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 433 pages, ISBN 978-1-5011-0710-8 At public events—book signings or speaking engagements for example—a question I’m often asked is Who’s your favorite author? And the answer is always the same . . . Although I’m informed by many crime writers—Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard, James Elroy, Poe, Hemingway, Stephen King, Robert Parker, Ken Bruen, Nelson DeMille and Lawrence
Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke Simon & Shuster, $27.99, 434 pages, ISBN 978-1-4767-1079-2 It’s hard, in this time of generally gracious living, to imagine the privation, fear and destitution that characterized the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the opening chapters of Wayfaring Stranger, by James Lee Burke manages to do it in a near-perfect manner that sets the stage for the rest of the novel in an
The Light of the World by James Lee Burke Simon & Shuster, $27.99, 548 pages, ISBN 978-1-4767-1076-1 This week’s MBR is a review of an author I’ve admired and read diligently for the past twenty-some years . . . ever since I heard him interviewed by Terry Gross on National Public Radio one afternoon as I waited in the car. The author’s name is James Lee Burke. He’s been