The Jealous Kind

Description

'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly On its surface, life in Houston is as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality. But beneath the glitz and superficial normalcy, a class war has begun, and it is nothing like the conventional portrayal of the decade. 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 and gifted Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson, at a Galveston drive-in, he inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob and one of the richest families in Texas. He also discovers he must find the courage his father had found as an American soldier in the Great War. Written in evocative prose, THE JEALOUS KIND may prove to be James Lee Burke's most encompassing work yet. As Aaron undergoes his harrowing evolution from boy to man, we can't help but recall the inspirational and curative power of first love and how far we would go to protect it.

James Lee Burke is the author of many novels, and the critically-acclaimed, bestselling Detective Dave Robicheaux series. He won the Edgar Award for both Cimarron Rose and Black Cherry Blues, and Sunset Limited was awarded the CWA Gold Dagger. Two For Texas was adapted for television, and Heaven's Prisoners and In the Electric Mist for film. Burke has been a Breadloaf Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, has been awarded the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America and has been nominated for a Pulitzer award. He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Missoula, Montana. www.jamesleeburke.com

There are not many crime writers about whom one might invoke the name of Zola for comparison, but Burke is very much in that territory. His stamping ground is the Gulf coast, and one of the great strengths of his work has always been the atmospheric background of New Orleans and the bayous. His bag, baggy novels are always about much more than the mechanics of the detective plot; his real subject, like the French master, is the human condition, seen in every situation of society. - INDEPENDENT The gentle giant of US crime writers, Burke always ensures that his Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux grapples with hot topics as much as with his own inner demons - I NEWSPAPER One of the finest crime writers America has ever produced ... Spellbinding and dazzlingly observed - if you only buy one crime novel this Christmas make it this one - Geoffrey Wansell, DAILY MAIL on Light of the World James Lee Burke continues to astonish ... I cannot think of another writer of crime fiction who has sustained such a level of excellence over so many novels featuring the same character. - THE TIMES