Of Flesh and Blood
James Lee Burke's Robicheaux mysteries meet Tender is the Flesh in a chewy, chilling Louisiana-set horror-thriller about cannibalism in the bayou from a Hollywood actor/screenwriter and psychiatrist writing duo.
The Louisiana parish of St. Landry thought they had seen the end of cannibalistic killings in 2008 with the death of the Cajun Cannibal, a flesh-eating serial killer who consumed eight victims before taking his own life.
Ten years later, a forensic psychiatrist's case study into the cannibal's murders twists itself into a terrifying reckoning with monsters both figurative and literal when he discovers the two share the same cursed blood.
When identical killings start happening again, questions about what really happened back then resurface, leading the psychiatrist into terrifying and dangerous levels of obsession. Told through the pages of the psychiatrist's case study, the story is part psychological horror, part serial-killer thriller.
Hunter Burke is a US actor known for Sweet Magnolias (2020), Claws (2017), The Big Short (2015) and Bosch (2014). He is originally from Broussard, Louisiana. Twitter/X: 1,655 followers; Instagram: 9,080 followers.
Together with Dr Nick Lavin, Burke has written the screenplays for the Louisiana-set films Atchafalaya and Lost Bayou. Of Flesh and Blood is their debut novel.
Dr Nick Lavin is as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, whose work informs the fictional narratives he writes with an experienced and empathetic lens on psychiatry and the complexities of mental health. No socials.
Together with Hunter Burke, Lavin has written the screenplays for the Louisiana-set films Atchafalaya and Lost Bayou. Of Flesh and Blood is their debut novel.