Crusader's Cross [Hardcover]

'...the pace, the plotting and the scene-setting are, as always, marvellously evocative and sustained.' (Philp Oakes LITERARY REVIEW )

'Nobody evokes the steamy bayous that surround New Orleans and the seedy low-life that dwells there more eloquently than James Lee Burke, one of America's most elegaic writers in any genre.' (Myles McWeeney IRISH INDEPENDENT )

'There's not much left to add to the praise already heaped on Burke. He is simply one of the best crime writers in the world.' (Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'Robicheaux's complex character elevates Burke's work above the usual crrime fiction genre ... he keeps it up there with his elegaic descriptions of the Louisiana landscape, a place where, in the marshland of the bayou, the past is an integral part of the present.' (SUNDAY EXPRESS )

'[James Lee Burke] has a shelf-full of awards and a shedful of sales. Everyone who knows the genre grasps that his series of books about the Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux has grown into one fo the crowning achievements in current US fiction. Together, they compose a matchless portrait of the ragged America we saw dissolve into chaos and cruelty.' (Boyd Tonkin THE INDEPENDENT )

'As ever with Burke, the novel is beautifully written, prefectly structured and peppered with some wonderfully flawed characters. But, more than that, he tells a great story, making some pretty profound oservations along the way.' (Allan Laing HERALD )

'Crusader's Cross is further confirmation of why [Burke's] the best in the business.' (IRISH EXAMINER )

'...the pace, the plotting and the scene-setting are, as always, marvellously evocative and sustained.' -- Philp Oakes LITERARY REVIEW 'Nobody evokes the steamy bayous that surround New Orleans and the seedy low-life that dwells there more eloquently than James Lee Burke, one of America's most elegaic writers in any genre.' -- Myles McWeeney IRISH INDEPENDENT 'There's not much left to add to the praise already heaped on Burke. He is simply one of the best crime writers in the world.' -- Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Robicheaux's complex character elevates Burke's work above the usual crrime fiction genre ... he keeps it up there with his elegaic descriptions of the Louisiana landscape, a place where, in the marshland of the bayou, the past is an integral part of the present.' SUNDAY EXPRESS '[James Lee Burke] has a shelf-full of awards and a shedful of sales. Everyone who knows the genre grasps that his series of books about the Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux has grown into one fo the crowning achievements in current US fiction. Together, they compose a matchless portrait of the ragged America we saw dissolve into chaos and cruelty.' -- Boyd Tonkin THE INDEPENDENT 'As ever with Burke, the novel is beautifully written, prefectly structured and peppered with some wonderfully flawed characters. But, more than that, he tells a great story, making some pretty profound oservations along the way.' -- Allan Laing HERALD 'Crusader's Cross is further confirmation of why [Burke's] the best in the business.' IRISH EXAMINER

'Nobody evokes the steamy bayous that surround New Orleans and the seedy low-life that dwells there more eloquently than James Lee Burke, one of America's most elegaic writers in any genre.'

'There's not much left to add to the praise already heaped on Burke. He is simply one of the best crime writers in the world.'

'Robicheaux's complex character elevates Burke's work above the usual crrime fiction genre ... he keeps it up there with his elegaic descriptions of the Louisiana landscape, a place where, in the marshland of the bayou, the past is an integral part of the present.'

'[James Lee Burke] has a shelf-full of awards and a shedful of sales. Everyone who knows the genre grasps that his series of books about the Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux has grown into one fo the crowning achievements in current US fiction. Together, they compose a matchless portrait of the ragged America we saw dissolve into chaos and cruelty.'

'As ever with Burke, the novel is beautifully written, prefectly structured and peppered with some wonderfully flawed characters. But, more than that, he tells a great story, making some pretty profound oservations along the way.'

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. They spend their off time at Galveston Island, fishing at night on the jetties, the future kept safely at bay, the past drifting off somewhere behind them. 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, who won't let her go. Jimmie agrees to meet Ida at the bus depot, ready for the road to Mexico. But Ida never shows. Dave and Jimmie want to believe she skipped town, but they know, deep down, that Ida Durbin never got to leave. That was many years ago - before Dave Robicheaux began his long odyssey through bars and drunk tanks and skin joints of every stripe. Before the Philippines and Vietnam. 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. Dave realises he can't let the past go. Ida's killers are still out there. So he begins his journey into the past - back to the summer of 1958 and a girl called Ida Durbin.

James Lee Burke is the author of many acclaimed novels, including 12 featuring Dave Robicheaux. He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Montana and Louisiana.