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James Lee Burke has just built a ranch in western Montana mere miles from the Idaho line. The celebrated crime novelist did it for two reasons: no mail delivery and no garbage collection. That’s the way Burke likes it, he says, releasing a giant cowboy laugh that echoes over the telephone line. He plans to split his time between the Montana ranges and his home in New Iberia, an old guard foothold of the Deep South that’s become the capaciously cutthroat backdrop for the majority of his Detective Robicheaux thrillers.

On Feb. 19, Burke will appear at the Design Building Auditorium at LSU to read selections from Crusader’s Cross, his latest in the Robicheaux series from Simon & Schuster. In it, the 69-year-old author writes, “The person who believes he can rise to a position of wealth and power in Louisiana without doing business with the devil probably knows nothing about the devil and even less about Louisiana.”

Crusader’s Cross finds antihero Dave Robicheaux retired from the New Iberia Sheriff’s Office, spending his lazy days feeding his feline companion. Still reeling from the loss of his late wife, the checkered-past sleuth is a regular at the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. But as usual, the plot thickens when Robicheaux begins asking questions. While investigating a decades-old murder mystery, he becomes a target of character assassination by a powerful clan of corrupt Louisiana blue-bloods.

The novel contains all of the watermarks of classic Robicheaux: crime and redemption, bloodshed and bullet holes, friendship and forbidden love—all told with sucker punch flourishes of poetic lyricism that Burke draws quick as a gunfighter.

The book also rips story arcs from local headlines. One subplot involves female victims of a Baton Rouge serial killer. Images of a shackled Derek Todd Lee shuffling into a courtroom are certain to dance in readers’ heads. If it bleeds, it leads. Burke admits he likes splicing shades of non-fiction events and social issues into his work.

“Crusader’s Cross is inspired by TV personalities and demagogues, McCarthyism and the suppression of dissent,” says Burke. “The two most pressing issues after World War II were McCarthyism and racism, and we still haven’t dealt with those problems in an adequate way. We’ve never met them head on.”

The crime novel is Burke’s 13th in the Robicheaux series and his 23rd published since 1965. In each, the villains are clearly drawn, often along lines of class and privilege. Burke is changing course, though. He’s putting the final touches on his first mystery novel with plans to release it later this year.

For more information on James Lee Burke’s reading at LSU, call 578-3123.