If you like James Lee Burke…

• Post by Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott Montgomery

James Lee Burke has helped draw general fiction fans over to the genre with his rich literary prose and complex heroes like Dave Robicheaux. If you’re shopping for a fan who has read everything of his or are a fan yourself, here are books by three authors who share Burke’s style or approach to writing.

The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell

Woodrell has a wonderful sense of place and prose as these three collected novels featuring Rene Shade, a police detective in a corrupt bayou parish with family that have a foot on the other side of the law. Poetic writing with vivid spots of sudden violence. You can find copies of The Bayou Trilogy on our shelves and via bookpeople.com. 

Coyote Wind by Peter Bowen

Montana cattle inspector, sometime deputy, part Metise Indian, and champion fiddle player Gabriel DuPre in a character with an indelible voice. In his first appearance has him looking into discovered wreckage of a thirty year old plane crash that holds a headless and handless corpse that leads to his own family secrets. A great look at culture on the fringes. You can find copies of Coyote Wind on our shelves and via bookpeople.com. 

The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley

As far as I’m concerned the greatest private eye novel there is. Vietnam veteran, bartender, and sometime detective C.W. Shugrue travels with modern west with an alcoholic writer in search of a missing daughter and possibly a vanishing America. What Hunter S. Thompson did in journalism and Pekinpah did in film, Crumley did in crime fiction.You can find copies of The Last Good Kiss on our shelves and via bookpeople.com.