James Lee Burke

Born in 1936 in Houston, Texas, James Lee Burke grew up on

the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. Over the years, Burke has

worked in the oil field and on a pipeline, taught at

several colleges, been a social worker on skid row in Los

Angeles, a newspaper reporter in Louisiana, a landman for

Sinclair Oil Company, a land surveyor in Colorado, and an

employee of the U.S. Forest Service in eastern Kentucky.

James Lee Burke is the author of eighteen previous novels,

including Cimarron Rose, Cadillac Jukebox, Burning Angel,

and Dixie City Jam, the New York Times bestselling Sunset

Limited, Heartwood and his latest Purple Cane Road.

James Lee Burke and his wife split their time between

Missoula, Montana and New Iberia Louisiana. They have four

children.