Skip to content

HARBOR LIGHTS

James Lee Burke

And Other Stories

A dynamic, gripping collection of short stories from "America's best novelist" (Denver Post), the New York Times bestselling James Lee Burke.
Harbor Lights is a story collection from one of the most popular and widely acclaimed icons of American fiction, featuring a never-before-published novella. These eight stories move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the South, weaving together love, friendship, violence, survival, and revenge. A boy and his father watch a German submarine sink an oil tanker as evil forces in the disguise of federal agents try to ruin their family. A girl is beaten up outside a bar as her university-professor father navigates new love and threats from a group of neo-Nazis. A pair of undercover union organizers are hired to break colts for a Hollywood actor, whose "Western hero" façade hides darkness. An oil rig worker witnesses a horrific attack on a local village while on a job in South America and seeks justice through one final act of bravery. With his nuanced characters, lyrical prose, and ability to write shocking violence in the most evocative settings, James Lee Burke's singular skills are on display in this superb anthology. Harbor Lights unfolds in stories that crackle and reverberate as unexpected heroes emerge. James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He's authored thirty-seven novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
Available products
Book

Published 2024-01-23 by Grove Atlantic

Comments

There are so many joys in this new short-story collection... Burke is unmatched as a stylist... These stories...are as richly detailed and beautifully rendered as Burke's novels... A real treat for fans of the author.

Eight stories, four of them new, continue the author's career-long project of expanding the mystery genre to include bigger crimes like slavery and deeper mysteries like the nature of evil.

Burke proves his versatility as a storyteller in this textured collection... Throughout, Burke manages to conjure his characters' worldview in a few artful brushstrokes... These impressive stories establish that Burke doesn't need a whodunit plot to catch a reader's attention.