Description

A novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana, as the South transforms and a brilliant cast of characters-enslaved and free women, plantation gentry, and battle-weary Confederate and Union soldiers-are caught in the maelstrom.

In the fall of 1863, the Union Army is in control of the Mississippi River and much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The retreating Confederate army is being replaced by Red Legs, irregulars commanded by a maniacal figure, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom.

When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.

Wade Lufkin, haunted by what he observed-and did-as a surgeon on the battlefield, has returned to his uncle’s plantation to convalesce, where he becomes enraptured by Hannah.

James Lee Burke, whose “evocative prose remains a thing of reliably fierce wonder” (Entertainment Weekly), expertly renders the rich Louisiana landscape, from the sunsets on the Mississippi River to the dingy saloons of New Orleans to the tree-lined shores of the bayou and the cottonmouth snakes that dwell in its depths. Powerful and deeply moving, Flags on the Bayou is a story of tragic acts of war, class divisions upended, and love enduring through it all.

Publisher Review

Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced * Daily Mail * The king of southern noir * Daily Mirror * One of the finest American writers * Guardian * James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed * Michael Connelly * A gorgeous prose stylist * Stephen King * James Lee Burke is the reigning champ of nostalgia noir * New York Times Book Review *