Born in 1936 in Houston, Texas, James Lee Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. Over the years, Burke has worked in the oil field and on a pipeline, taught at several colleges, been a social worker on skid row in Los Angeles, a newspaper reporter in Louisiana, a landman for Sinclair Oil Company, a land surveyor in Colorado, and an employee of the U.S. Forest Service in eastern Kentucky.

James Lee Burke is the author of eighteen previous novels, including Cimarron Rose, Cadillac Jukebox, Burning Angel, and Dixie City Jam, the New York Times bestselling Sunset Limited, Heartwood and his latest Purple Cane Road.

James Lee Burke and his wife split their time between Missoula, Montana and New Iberia Louisiana. They have four children.