James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger (USA 2021)

From the Publisher:
In his most ambitious work yet, New York Times bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man's unforgettable life.
In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark.

Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein -- a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business.

In just a few years' time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless act yet -- one inspired by that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth.

A tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller, Wayfaring Stranger "is a sprawling historical epic full of courage and loyalty and optimism and good-heartedness that reads like an ode to the American Dream" (Benjamin Percy, Poets & Writers).

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger. A Novel. Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 9781982183448 (July, 2021), 464 p., $17.00.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger (UK 2015)

From the Publisher:
A fateful encounter with Bonnie and Clyde, a crime of greed, cruelty and the horror of war.
From the award-winning author of THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN

When 16-year-old Weldon Avery Holland encounters the notorious Bonnie and Clyde in his Texas hometown, the course of his young life is altered forever. He dedicates himself to fighting evil wherever he finds it.

But it's the 1930s and evil is sweeping the globe as the Nazis rise. When war breaks out, Holland finds himself in Germany, irrevocably scarred by scenes of death and destruction.

Peacetime brings apparent bliss, and Holland is offered a path to wealth and luxury by the enigmatic 'Wayfaring Stranger'. But soon, he discovers that the greed, violence and ruthlessness of war are nothing compared to the depths of human cruelty at play here.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger. Orion, ISBN: 9781409128830 (September, 2015), 448 p., £8.99.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger (USA 2015)

From the Publisher:
In his most ambitious work yet, New York Times bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man's unforgettable life -- connecting a fateful encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to heroic acts at the Battle of the Bulge and finally to the high-stakes gambles and cutthroat players who ushered in the dawn of the American oil industry.

In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun and being unsure whether it hit its mark.

Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein -- a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business.

In just a few years' time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless, courageous act yet -- one that takes its inspiration from that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth.

A tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller that crosses continents and decades of American history, Wayfaring Stranger "is a sprawling historical epic full of courage and loyalty and optimism and good-heartedness that reads like an ode to the American Dream" (Benjamin Percy, Poets & Writers)

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger. A Novel. Pocket Books, ISBN: 9781476710808 (April, 2015), 435 p., $9.99.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger (UK 2014)

From the Publisher:
A brilliant standalone novel from the crime-writing genius, James Lee Burke.
James Lee Burke's new novel begins in West Texas in 1934, and the story opens with a fateful encounter between the narrator, Weldon Avery Holland, and the notorious Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker - a meeting which ends with the 16-year-old Holland putting a bullet through the windscreen of Clyde's stolen automobile.

Weldon's education in the evils that men - and women - are capable of continues as we move to the Ardennes Forest and the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, where Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland saves his sergeant, Hershel Pine, from death by suffocation when he is buried alive in his foxhole under the treads of a Waffen SS Tiger tank. Weldon and Hershel survive the executions of the wounded by the SS and escape on a freight train deep into Nazi Germany. There, they stumble into an extermination camp deserted by the SS, and discover among the stacked bodies a young woman named Rosita Lowenstein - the second woman to change Weldon's life.

Weldon goes all the way to the Elbe River in the war's brutal climax, but afterwards he is determined to find Rosita - eventually tracking her down in Paris, where they get married. But Hershel has also found gold in the dross of conflict, claiming to have discovered the secret to the Tiger tank's indestructibility, its unique welding process - and on their return to the States, it looks as if the two friends have not merely survived; they're going to be rich.

But as the two form a pipeline corporation and enter the oil business, they are about to encounter - amidst the super-rich of Huston - levels of greed and cruelty they thought they had left far behind in the blood and horror of war.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger. Orion, ISBN: 9781409128588 (November, 2014), 435 p., £19.99.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger (USA 2014)

From the Publisher:
In his most ambitious work yet, New York Times bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man's unforgettable life -- connecting a fateful encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to heroic acts at the Battle of the Bulge and finally to the high-stakes gambles and cutthroat players who ushered in the dawn of the American oil industry.

In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun and being unsure whether it hit its mark.

Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein -- a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business.

In just a few years' time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless, courageous act yet -- one that takes its inspiration from that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth.

A tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller that crosses continents and decades of American history, Wayfaring Stranger "is a sprawling historical epic full of courage and loyalty and optimism and good-heartedness that reads like an ode to the American Dream" (Benjamin Percy, Poets & Writers)

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger. A Novel. Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 9781476710792 (July, 2014), 435 p., $27.99, eBook $14.99.