Just when you think James Lee Burke can’t get any more famous (29 books, two Edgar Awards, three movies made from his novels — two of them starring Alec Baldwin and Tommy Lee Jones — international fan clubs, and shops and restaurants in New Iberia advertising that Burke’s protagonist, Iberia Parish detective, “Dave Robicheaux eats here”), he garners a new honor. Burke has been named Grand Master for 2009 by the Mystery Writers of America. He shares the honor with author Sue Grafton.
Since the award’s inception in 1955, when British writer Agatha Christie was named the first Grand Master, the yearly honor roll has swelled to include names like Ellery Queen, James M. Cain, Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, John le Carre, Tony Hillerman, Elmore Leonard, P.D. James and Stephen King.
Burke, 72, lives in New Iberia and Lolo, Mont., and most of his work is set in those two locals. He is currently at work on his 30th book, “Rain Gods,” a continuation of the Billy Bob Holland series, set in Texas and Montana.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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