. . . I had found the edge. The place where you unstrap all your fastenings to the earth, to what you are what you have been, where you flame out on the edge of the spheres, and the sun and moon become eclipsed and the world below is as dead and remote and without interest as if it were glazed with ice.

He has won an Edgar Award for Black Cherry Blues (1990) and Cimarron Rose (1998). The MWA awarded its Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel of the year in 1990 for Black Cherry Blues. Governor of Louisiana Kathleen Blanco on November 2 2002 at a ceremony held at the inaugural Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge LA.

The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen first by Alec Baldwin (Heaven's Prisoners) and then Tommy Lee Jones (In the Electric Mist). He has won an Edgar Award for Black Cherry Blues (1990) and Cimarron Rose (1998). Burke has also written seven miscellaneous crime novels two short story anthologies four books starring protagonist Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland and three books starring Billy Bob's cousin Texas James Lee Burkeriff Hackberry Holland.