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Portrait image of James Lee Burke Photo: Brad Kemp / AP Photo / TT (2001)

Sample of authors

Burke, James Lee

James Lee Burke is an American author of Irish descent born in Houston, Texas, and brought up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. His father died in a road accident when James Lee Burke was eighteen years old. Burke enrolled at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, in 1955 and transferred to the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 1957, where he read journalism and graduated with...

Further reading

Literary figures

Parker

Gender: Male

One of the most horrible anti-heroes in crime fiction is the professional criminal and psychopath Parker (he doesn’t have a first name), created by Richard Stark (pseudonym for Donald E. Westlake). He doesn’t have a permanent home, is well-built, his face looks like it has been carved in cement, his hair is brown and stripy, and he kills without any consideration or conscience. The only time he sh...

Further reading