Because he is the most profound American crime writer.

I am currently listening to Feast Day of Fools narrated brilliantly by Will Patton.

If you like mysteries and thrillers you must read James Lee Burke.  No one writes more poetically and movingly about American culture.  Another of my authors, Michael Connelly, writes this in his review:

It is the writer’s job to look out the window at the world and tell us how he sees it. In this book Burke puts the unblinking eye on the issues of politics and immigration and religion, synthesizing it all down to the character and impulse of violence and vengeance. At center, he gives us Hackberry Holland, a man who carries the past with him like the Texas sheriff’s badge pinned to his chest. He gives us villains as treacherous as any ever put down on page. And he gives us prose as deeply etched and poetic as the landscape along the Texas-Mexico border. Here’s just one little taste that I loved: “Hackberry realized that he was about to witness one of those moments when evil reveals itself for what it is-–insane in its fury and self-hatred and its animus at whatever reminds it of itself.”

And as much as I love James Lee Burke, when you listen to his books you have the treat of Will Patton, who adds greatly to the prose.  His voice matches the prose and the environment of the books.

Once again I get to enjoy a true master writer.