America''s most acclaimed crime writer returns to Louisiana with one of the best-loved detectives in fiction, Dave Robicheaux.

In the summer of 1958, Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie are just out of high school. Jimmie and Dave get work with an oil company, laying out rubber cables in the bays and mosquito-infested swamps all along the Louisiana-Texas coastline. But on the Fourth of July, change approaches in the form of Ida Durbin, a sweet-faced young woman with a lovely voice and a mandolin. Jimmie falls instantly in love with her. But Ida''s not free to love - she''s a prostitute, in hock to a brutal man called Kale. Jimmie agrees to meet Ida at the bus depot, ready for the road to Mexico. But Ida never shows.

That was many years ago. Now, an older, well-worn Dave walks into Baptist Hospital to visit a man called Troy Bordelon, who wants to free himself of a dark secret before he dies. A bully and a sadist, he has a lot to confess to - but he chooses to talk about a young girl, a prostitute who he glimpsed briefly as a kid, bloodied and beaten, tied to a chair in his uncle''s house.

Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:

''James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.'' Michael Connelly

''A gorgeous prose stylist.'' Stephen King

''Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.'' Daily Mail

Fans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke:

Dave Robicheaux Series

1. The Neon Rain
2. Heaven''s Prisoners
3. Black Cherry Blues
4. A Morning for Flamingos
5. A Stained White Radiance
6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
7. Dixie City Jam
8. Burning Angel
9. Cadillac Jukebox
10. Sunset Limited
11. Purple Cane Road
12. Jolie Blon''s Bounce
13. Last Car to Elysian Fields
14. Crusader''s Cross
15. Pegasus Descending
16. The Tin Roof Blowdown
17. Swan Peak
18. The Glass Rainbow
19. Creole Belle
20. Light of the World
21. Robicheaux

Hackberry Holland Series

1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield
2. Rain Gods
3. Feast Day of Fools
4. House of the Rising Sun

Billy Bob Holland Series

1. Cimarron Rose
2. Heartwood
3. Bitterroot
4. In The Moon of Red Ponies

* Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *