Book review: Bluebird, Bluebird - A. Locke

East Texas, present days, black and white people still divided by hate and prejudice, while their lives are so interconnected instead it would be difficult to tell them apart.
Texas Ranger Darren gets deeply involved in trying to solve two crimes, a black man and a white woman, in a town where drugs, white supremacy and hate and love run riot. Darren is also taunted by issues in his marriage, being the only black ranger and wanting to fight to make his home - Texas - a better place.
A good crime novel, extremely interesting in how it explore the racism in Texas. Open ended, I will surely read the sequel.

Overall rating:  7   Plot: 7   Writing style: 7   Cover:  7

Title: Bluebird, Bluebird

Author: Attica Locke
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Pages: 320
Publication year: 2017

The Plot:

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply conflicted about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him back.

So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders - a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman - have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes - and save himself in the process - before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

The Author:

Attica Locke’s Pleasantville was the 2016 winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was also long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction, and made numerous “Best of 2015” lists. Her first novel, Black Water Rising, was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her second book, The Cutting Season, is a national bestseller and the winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke has worked as a screenwriter as well. Most recently, she was a writer and producer on the Fox drama, Empire. She serves on the board of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.