Showing results by author "Lee James" in All Categories

Dave Robicheaux is a haunted man. Between his recurrent nightmares, his thoughts drift from one irreconcilable memory to the next. During a murder investigation, Dave Robicheaux discovers he may have committed the homicide he's investigating, one which involved the death of the man who took the life of Dave's beloved wife. As he works to clear his name, Robicheaux encounters a cast of characters and a resurgence of dark social forces that threaten to destroy all of those whom he loves.

In the fall of 1863, the Union Army is in control of the Mississippi River and much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The retreating Confederate army is being replaced by Red Legs, irregulars commanded by a maniacal figure, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.

Dave is in a recovery unit in New Orleans, where a Creole girl named Tee Jolie Melton visits him and leaves him an iPod with the country blues song 'Creole Belle' on it. Then she disappears. Dave becomes obsessed with the song and the memory of Tee Jolie and goes in search of her sister, who later turns up inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf. Meanwhile, there has been an oil well blowout on the Gulf, threatening the cherished environs of the bayous.

This thunderous and introspective audiobook pits the earthy and robust Dave Robicheaux against forces of law and power far beyond his control. When a racially-motivated murder nearly three decades old churns back to the surface, Robicheaux is confronted by mob bosses, corrupt police chiefs and even dirtier politicians. Despite his efforts to stay clear of the action, he is inevitably drawn into the center of the conflict as evidence points to the current resident of the governor's mansion. Can Robicheaux uncover the truth and stay one step ahead of the people who want him silenced?

The American West in the early 1960s appears to be a pastoral paradise: golden wheat fields, mist-filled canyons, frolicking animals. Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard has observed it from the open door of a boxcar, riding the rails for both inspiration and odd jobs. Jumping off in Denver, he finds work on a farm and meets Joanne McDuffy, an articulate and fierce college student and gifted painter. Their soul connection is immediate, but their romance is complicated by Joanne's involvement with a shady professor who is mixed up with a drug-addled cult.

Billy Bob Holland is a lawyer for the people of sunbaked Deaf Smith, in southern Texas. Although occasionally he is haunted by memories of a violent past, his life is serene—until a local guitarist, Lucas Smothers, lands in jail for raping and murdering a young woman. As Billy Bob gathers information to defend him, the evidence soon points to the son of a wealthy local businessman. In the ensuing battle, money is pitted against the law. But a deeper struggle also arises, for Lucas is Billy Bob’s illegitimate son.

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 and commitments, including debts to local mob boss Joey 'Meatballs' Gouza. 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.

Wyatt Dixon, rodeo cowboy and 'the most dangerous, depraved, twisted and unpredictable human I ever knew' is certainly not one of Billy Bob Holland's favourite people. Sentenced to 60 years in jail for murder, Dixon is out after only a year, due to the DA's failure to disclose a piece of information. He swears he's a changed man and needs Billy Bob's help, but how can Billy Bob believe the man who tortured his wife? And then there's Johnny American Horse, who has been caught carrying a gun. He says he needs it for protection; in a dream he saw two men coming for him.

Dave Robicheaux still feels guilt over a tragic event he wasn't sober enough to prevent. Dallas Klein, a gambling addict and buddy, was killed in an armed robbery he'd been forced to engineer. Two decades later, several incidents in Dave's life in Iberia Parish link to those involved. First he meets Dallas' daughter, Trish, who keeps odd company and is blackballed by the local casinos. Then the supposed suicide of a young girl appears to be connected to the man Dallas owed money to.

When Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers disturbing secrets from his mother's past, he embarks on a journey through a murky world of vice, politics and murder. Robicheaux has been told that his mother, Mae, was a hooker and ended her life drowned in a mud puddle by two cops working for the Mob. As Robichaeux and his partner hunt for the killers, they hook up with a door-to-door salesman turned state governor, a psychotic hit-man, and the owner of the mansion at Purple Cane Road - who knows rather too much about Robichaeux's wife....

Sheriff Hackberry Holland patrols a small Southwest Texas border town with a deep and abiding respect for the citizens in his care. Still mourning the loss of his cherished wife and locked in a perilous almost-romance with his deputy, Pam Tibbs, a woman many decades his junior, Hackberry feeds off the deeds of evil men to keep his own demons at bay.

Hackberry Holland is a man haunted by a chequered and traumatic past. A former POW from the Korean War, he has left everything behind to become sheriff of a dried-out, broken-down border town in south Texas. Hack soon finds himself dealing with more than just his own demons when nine dead prostitutes are dug up behind a run-down church. The search for justice - and revenge - pits Hack against hired guns, drug dealers, and a psychotic killer known as The Preacher.

Lucas Smothers, nineteen and from the wrong end of town, has been arrested for the rape and murder of a local girl. His lawyer Billy Bob Holland is convinced of Lucas's innocence but proving it means unearthing the truth from a seething mass of deceit and corruption. A corruption endemic in the way it can be only in a gossipy small town where everybody knows everybody else's business. Billy Bob's relationship with Lucas's family is not an easy one—years back he was a close friend of Mrs Smothers, too close according to her husband Vernon.

Toussaint Boudreaux, a black docker in New Orleans, moonlights as a prize-fighter in the hope of a better life. J. P. Winfield, a hick with a gift for 12-string guitar, finds his break into showbiz leads to the flipside of the American dream. And Avery Broussard, descendant of an aristocratic French family, runs whiskey after what remains of his land is repossessed....

When Amanda Boudreau is raped and murdered, it's small-time black hustler Tee Bobby Hulin's prints that are found at the crime scene. Tee Bobby pleads innocence, but then attempts suicide in his holding cell. Why? Lawyer Perry LaSalles takes on the defence, but his motives are fuelled by guilt.

Son Holland arrived in the Louisiana penal camp determined not to spend the rest of his days suffering in a chain gang - but he didn't imagine for one minute that in order to escape he would need to kill a man. Terrified for his life, he flees the state across the river to Texas, taking with him a beautiful Indian squaw and a fellow prisoner. And as they make their way towards General Houston's infamous Texas Rangers they find themselves in the midst of the final tragic battle for the Alamo.

The merciless Shondell and Balangie families are long-time enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny and Isolde - star-crossed teenage lovers - have run away together. As he tried to uncover the reasons why, Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde's mother and her father's mistress. In retribution, Balangie - as jealous as he is cruel - hires an assassin to hunt Robicheaux and his long-time partner, Clete Purcel.

Detective Dave Robicheaux is fighting his demons to overcome his toughest case yet. There's something off about the relationship between mob boss Tony Nemo, local author Levon Broussard and New Orleans poster boy Jimmy Nightengale, and after a vicious assault, it's up to Robicheaux to uncover the truth. Complicating matters is the sudden death of T. J. Dartez, the New Iberian local responsible for Robicheaux's wife's death, and all are looking to the detective as the murderer. Can Robicheaux clear his name?

Personal tragedy has left Dave Robicheaux close to the edge. Battling against his old addiction to alcohol and haunted nightly by vivid dreams and visitations, Dave finds his only tranquillity at home with his young ward Alafair. But even this fragile peace is shattered by the arrival of Dixie Lee Pugh who brings with him a brutal trail of murder and violence.

On its surface life in Houston is as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality. Against this backdrop Aaron Holland Broussard discovers the poignancy of first love and a world of violence he did not know existed. When Aaron spots the beautiful Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, he inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob. He also discovers he must find the courage his father had found as an American soldier in the Great War