-
See Our Best Book
Club Books of 2026!
A Dave Robicheaux Novel
Louisiana Sherriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux and his longtime friend and partner Clete Purcel are vacationing in Montana's spectacular Big Sky country when a series of suspicious events leads them to believe their lives - and the lives of their families - are in danger.
In contrast to the tranquil beauty of Flathead Lake and the colorful summertime larch and fir unspooling across unblemished ranchland, a venomous presence lurks in the caves and hills, intent on destroying innocent lives. First, Alafair Robicheaux is nearly killed by an arrow while hiking alone on a trail. Then Clete's daughter, Gretchen Horowitz, whom readers met in Burke's previous bestseller Creole Belle, runs afoul of a local cop, with dire consequences. Next, Alafair thinks she sees a familiar face following her around town - but how could convicted sadist and serial killer Asa Surette be loose on the streets of Montana?
Surrette committed a string of heinous murders while capital punishment was outlawed in his home state of Kansas. Years ago, Alafair, a lawyer and novelist, interviewed Surette in prison, aiming to prove him guilty of other crimes and eligible for the death penalty. Recently, a prison transport van carrying Surette crashed and he is believed dead, but Alafair isn't so sure.
"Starred Review. [A] powerful meditation on the nature - and smell - of evil...even as the stomach roils, the fingers keep turning the pages because the much-honored Burke...is a master storyteller." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. [E]vil comes in a more chilling, vaguely supernatural form - depravity beyond sociology - giving these novels a darker, more mythic tone ... but it works, enveloping the reader in the visceral terror of the moment." - Booklist
"Burke produces his most sharply focused, and perhaps his most harrowing, study of human evil, refracted through the conventions of the crime novel." - Kirkus
This information about Light of the World was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He has authored forty novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
The Sister's Curse
by Nicola Solvinic
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes
by Chanel Cleeton
The Vanishing Place
by Zoë Rankin
 (1).gif)
Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
