Darren Matthews is in all kinds of trouble. His marriage is a shaky alliance dependent on his good behavior. He's trying to placate his estranged and difficult mother, who holds a key piece of evidence that could get a friend convicted of murder and cost him his job as a Texas Ranger. Darren is unhappily stuck in at a desk poring over digital surveillance and chatroom logs of the local Aryan Brotherhood for a joint task force of state and federal investigators. Then he's chosen to assist a sheriff to investigate the disappearance of a nine-year-old boy who lived in a ramshackle trailer camp beside Lake Caddo.

It's a sensitive case. The boy's family is involved in the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and they're fighting amongst themselves, ripe for spilling secrets. The case the joint task force has been building against the group is close to yielding convictions after years of work, but Donald Trump has just been elected, and the feds' priorities might be changed. The local sheriff could use the help of a black Texas Ranger, since the land occupied by the white supremacist camp belongs to Leroy Page, the last of a line of free blacks who established Hopetown after emancipation. Though the family of the missing boy will object to his involvement, Darren can go places and ask questions that a white officer couldn't.

But things are more complicated than he expected. Page is the last person to have seen the boy alive, and he becomes a suspect. The FBI wants to make an example of him. If they charge him with a hate crime, it will prove to the incoming administration that they can investigate hate crimes with an even hand. And Page, who is in the process of selling his land to a shady developer, doesn't see Darren as an ally.

As in the first book in this series (BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD , the East Texas location is vividly drawn: the antebellum nostalgia tourism of Jefferson, the hidden community of Hopetown, where a family of Caddo Indians has lived in harmony with African Americans for generations, the vast, spooky lake where the boy disappeared, full of cypress swamps and bayous.

Darren's location in this landscape is also vividly drawn. Raised by two uncles, one a lawman and the other a civil rights lawyer, he embodies a conflict that divided them, whether to forgive or fight white oppression. Every step Darren takes in this case is fraught with that tension, and while he's unsure if a child raised by people filled with hate won't already have been poisoned by it, he seems to be the only person involved in the investigation who wants to find the missing nine-year-old.

The characters are rich, the dilemmas of race in America are unflinchingly depicted, and the complex plot is unfolded with evocative language. Once again, Attica Locke redeems the police procedural by raising issues of justice that are too often evaded, in fiction and in reality. Readers will look forward to following her future travels up Highway 59.

This was another good entry into this series. It was perfectly atmospheric and well paced. And both of the novels in this series have ended with a cliffhanger- which I think is a good thing for mysteries!

Heaven, My Home
A Highway 59 Mystery #2
Attica Locke
Mulholland Books, September 2019
ISBN 978-0-316-36340-2
Hardcover

Being a black Texas Ranger comes with its own set of problems, as you might expect, and Darren Mathews is indeed dealing with those issues as well as repercussions from his last case. On top of that, his own mother is blackmailing him, his marriage is strained and alcohol is getting the better of him. Investigating the disappearance of a young boy draws him back into the world of white supremacy when the Rangers think Darren is the best man to work with the local white sheriff because the boy, son of a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, was last seen in a black community.

Darren is confronted by racial prejudice from the white people in town, including the sheriff, but also believes that Leroy Page, an elderly black man who saw the child, is not cooperating with the hunt for the boy. Darren’s friend, Greg, a white FBI agent, shocks Darren when he posits that Leroy just might be guilty of a hate crime in reverse. Could he be right?

Several threads in this story reflect the racial stress that has been growing in this country but Ms. Locke has a deft way with words and creates a kind of tension we don’t often see. Getting to the resolution of this disappearance is rough but I couldn’t look away until I knew what really happened.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, November 2019.

I may be in the minority on this but I didn’t love it. I liked it, but it didn’t “wow” me. It’s beautifully written and a unique story but I had a hard time connecting with the characters. It’s thick with tension, both in the crime itself and social justice. It felt like a lot of build up for an ending that was pretty anticlimactic. Thank you to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review!

As with the first in this series, the descriptions of East Texas and the life and history there were really evocative and compelling. The main character was less sympathetic, however - making him, perhaps, more human (although his flaws were already well-described in the first book), but also less engaging. The story wasn't as tightly woven and expertly revealed, either, and I didn't race to the end, up all night, prioritizing it over everything else. Still, Locke illuminates a little-known pocket of United States of American history and culture, with all its messiness, trauma, ambiguity, and disharmony.

If I was a fan of my first Attica Locke book because of the setting, then I am even more of a fan because this is set literally in my neck of the <piney> woods. I have always been intrigued by the history of the communities surrounding Caddo Lake and my high school friends and I spent quite a bit of time stuffing our faces at Big Pines Lodge and exploring Uncertain, TX.

This book gave me a new perspective of a place I have explored so many times though. I thought this story was so much more intriguing than the first. The characters were more developed and the story built upon so many things from the first book. I don't agree with the main character or even always like him or his choices, but I do find the stories fascinating.

East Texas, racial tension amidst the furor of white supremacy. A place Darren gladly left in Lockes last book, though he left many secrets there, secrets that could cost him everything. Now he is being sent back, a nine year old boy is missing and though that is not supposed to be his prime concern, he gets tangled up in his disappearance anyway. The reason he was sent there is to get evidence and information on the white supremacists. Here he will meet the usual suspects, some good, many with their own agendas.

In the story itself, Darren, compared this case to the Russian nesting folks, and that is a great description for the book itself. Uncover one motive, one layer and another appears. There are secrets and dangers lurking everywhere. Darren himself is a flawed character and he honestly enlightens the reader about his own secrets, mistakes, in both his personal and professional life. There are many, and sometimes what one believes, is not the whole truth. Into this vipers next of white supremacy, he finds the usual hate but also much more. Somehow he must make his way through and find a lost boy and some answers as to where his life is heading.

Since some areas were dropped, nor fully explained, I expect their will be another in series coming down the line. Well written, and atmospheric, some hates never die, but sometimes fairness prevails.

"Cant have all the hate talk out there and it not end up in violence some kind of way. You talk it enough and it carves out a path of permission in your heart, starts to make crazy shit okay."

ARC from Netgalley.

With “Black Water Rising,” Attica Locke staked a literary claim on Texas and the South a decade ago by providing a unique African American perspective on the region’s history of racial strife, politics and corporate skullduggery.

Locke kicked it up a notch with 2017’s “Bluebird, Bluebird,” the first in a series that introduced Darren Mathews, a cop who quit law school to join the Texas Rangers after the real-life dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in 1998. Mathews’ deep love for Texas and ambivalence about what it had become in the ramp-up to the 2016 election are powerful themes in “Bluebird.”

By its searing conclusion “Bluebird” had drawn Mathews into a legal and ethical morass as he tried to help family friend Rutherford “Mack” McMillan, accused of killing an Aryan Brotherhood of Texas member. Twisted and suspenseful, “Bluebird” was a literary high-wire act that begged the question — could Locke pull it off again in the Texas Ranger’s sophomore outing?

Her new book, “Heaven, My Home,” picks up soon after the events of “Bluebird,” but the novel reads like a stand-alone, filling in the “Bluebird” backstory quickly.

The plot of “Heaven, My Home” may be complex, but it’s worth every blistering word Locke puts on the page. Set in December 2016, the story starts four weeks after Donald Trump is elected, and Mathews is filled with rage over the election: “In an act of blind fury, white voters had just lit a match to the very country they claimed to love — simply because they were being asked to share it.”

His work on a combined FBI, ATF, DEA and Texas Rangers task force investigating the Aryan Brotherhood has kept Mathews at home in Houston, allowing his marriage much-needed time to heal. His lawyer wife’s profound lack of understanding of his love for the Rangers and his life on the road is a central source of strife.

Mathews’ conflicted love of the law and his concerns as a black man in America contributed to his questionable involvement in the open murder investigation against his friend Mack. With the district attorney sniffing around, Mathews is both in the crosshairs of a hate group and literally under the gun from prosecutors.

Six years into a marathon investigation, Mathews and other task force members feel pressured, uncertain of their mission if “a Trump Justice Department mistakes the Aryan Brotherhood for some sort of honor guard.”

When Levi King, the 9-year-old son of imprisoned Aryan Brotherhood captain Bill “Big Kill” King, disappears from Hopetown, four hours north of Houston, Mathews jumps back into the fieldwork he loves.

The ranger dutifully heads up Highway 59 to Hopetown. It’s a small settlement of black residents, owners of the property since Reconstruction, and Native Indians near Caddo Lake whose peace has been shattered by a war with a group of poor whites including King’s wife.

In a case rife with political and racial turns, Mathews and his task force get a close look inside the Brotherhood’s leadership. He also realizes the boy’s abduction may not be what it seems.

By the time the mystery of Levi’s disappearance is solved, “Heaven, My Home” has brought justice and a measure of mercy to a wide array of characters, not the least of which is the troubled hero whose life and emotions are laid bare.

Along the way, Attica Locke makes us understand Ranger Darren Mathews, even forgive him as he tries to find forgiveness for various characters in this riveting novel. That alone makes it one of the most affecting mysteries of the year.

Woods is a book critic, editor and author of several anthologies and crime novels

This is a great series although I preferred Bluebird, Bluebird to HMH. The mystery, although interesting, did not keep my interest like the first book. The characters really shine - incredibly vivid portraits of the major and minor players. I'm looking forward to #3. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is sent to East Texas to find 9-year-old Levi King who went missing after boating alone on vast Caddo Lake. Mathews is puzzled by Levi's wealthy grandmother Rosemary King who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

Levi's disappearance also has links to Darren's last case and is a way for him to deal with white supremacists in the region, including Levi's father Bill.

This was a fine follow-up book to the award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and Mulholland Books with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

In this follow up to Bluebird, Bluebird, Darren Matthews, a black Texas Ranger, is trying to revitalize his career and marriage after his tangled involvement in his last case.
He specializes in crimes with a racial component.
Now assigned to a task force investigating the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, he is sent to the small town of Jefferson to help the local sheriff find a missing child. Nine year old Levi King is the son of Brotherhood member Bill King, in prison on drug charges.
Levi was last seen steering an old motorboat on Caddo Lake as night was setting in.
As Darren searches for clues in Levi's disappearance, he finds connections to his previous case.
An elderly black man is charged with Levi's murder when evidence of the boy is found in his home, but Darren believes Levi is still alive and won't stop searching until he finds him.
This book really drew me in with it's powerful, atmospheric writing and thought-provoking story.
Darren is a flawed, but intriguing character with many interesting aspects to his personality. He has you rooting for him as he makes his way through difficult times.
This brilliant, relevant mystery, crime fiction novel is a must read!
I am going back to read Bluebird, Bluebird, I recommend starting with it first.
Thank you to Little, Brown and Company for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

After Bluebird, Bluebird I wasn't ready to let Darren go as a character, and I'm so happy he's back. Attica Locke is fantastic and her writing never disappoints. I love this novel from the first sentence to the last. Locke is astute and her commentary on the world is necessary and admirable.

There’s a bristling rage beneath the lyrical surface of Attica Locke’s latest novel, HEAVEN, MY HOME. The sequel to the Texas-raised author’s outstanding BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD – a book which deservedly achieved the rare feat of scooping major crime writing awards on both sides of the Atlantic, the Steel Dagger from the British CWA and the Edgar Award from the MWA – sees the return of black Texas Ranger Darren Matthews.

The events in this novel follow on closely from the climax of the previous Darren Matthews tale, and also come hard on the heels of the elections of Donald Trump. Locke doesn't shy away from tackling the rising spectre of white supremacy in the United States, as well as the shock many felt that the wider US electorate had somehow elected someone like Trump to the highest office in the land.

In HEAVEN, MY HOME, Mathews has taken a desk job analysing surveillance on the Aryan Brotherhood but returns to the field when the nine-year-old son of an imprisoned leader of the Texas chapter disappears. Confounding matters, the last person to see the boy was an irascible old black man. Can Matthews save an already-indoctrinated child while trying to take down the Brotherhood, during a time that a new incoming administration with little interest in such threats is preparing to ascend to the White House?

Locke brings the small towns and swampy waterways of east Texas to stunning life while delivering a powerful novel addressing some of the biggest issues of our time. Can those who've put self-interest ahead of their fellow man be forgiven? Has the arc of justice in recent decades been an illusion, or is the spike in white supremacy the last gasps of bigots whose time has long passed? But what damage is done in the meantime.

A superb tale that may be even better than the award-bedecked BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD.

Perhaps Locke will add another rare feat to her resume - a double-Edgar Award winner. For by now it’s very clear: Attica Locke is one of America’s greatest novelists, regardless of genre

While i liked that this book was set in East Texas which is the area where i live - i am deeply disappointed that the author is portraying this area as racist. I don't like that at all - it is nothing like that and I am deeply disappointed.

4 stars. Definitely an improvement (for me) from Bluebird, Bluebird.

With her previous book in the series, I was disappointed because it was so hyped up (and was an Edgar Award Winner), but I gave it three stars (review here) because I knew it was more me than anything wrong with the book. I wasn't as engaged with the investigation, but I recognized the writing was superb.I was hoping the next in the series would improve on that and it definitely did.

Highlights of what I liked:
1) This book picks up right after the 2016 Presidential election. The setting is East Texas and law enforcement (the FBI, Texas Rangers and local sheriff offices) are trying to discern how to proceed with their investigation of the Arayan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). There is a lot of political calculus needed, especially when the main crime being investigated is the disappearance (and suspected murder) of the 9 year old son of an infamous ABT member.
2) Darren Mathews is a great anti-hero. His character has so much complexity to it that you can't help yourself in rooting for him (and sweating it out when you're afraid he is in danger), which is written expertly by Ms. Locke.
3) The length. At 267 pages, there is no fat that needs to be cut. I appreciate an author being able to write expertly without it being a tome. Also, I don't really know how to articulate it, but her writing is just so...smart. It's so on point with what's going on today and how complex everything is in this country. The quote below is a perfect example.

Darren pictured the blond boy in the photo, tried to quantify in his mind the amount of grace owed a child, one who was merely copying the grown men around him. And that's all it was, wasn't it? He hated to think the country was growing racists like bumper crops, full of piss and venom, as bitter as the dirt from which they came. Surely Levi King deserved the benefit of the doubt. Didn't he? Did Darren really want to live in a world in which a nine-year-old wasn't worth his hope?

This series isn't for everyone, but I found in reading the second installment that it definitely is for me. I am a political junkie and I love when that interest coincides with my #1 love of reading. What I also appreciate, is that you can jump right in the series without reading the previous book. Attica Locke does a great job of recapping just enough without making you feel like you need to start from the beginning. I can't wait to see what Ms. Locke comes up with next for Darren Mathews.

Thank you to Netgalley, Mulholland Books and Attica Locke for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

Review Date: 09/30/2019
Publication Date: 09/17/2019

“Heaven My Home” picks up where “Bluebird, Bluebird” left off. Darren Mathews, living under the shadow of unfinished business in his investigation of the death of Ronnie Malvo, is on the shores of Caddo Lake, looking for a missing boy. The child is the son of an jailed Aryan Brotherhood member. Regardless of his personal feelings about the family, Mathews is doing his sworn duty as a Texas Ranger. Darren Mathews is a fascinating, complicated character, with high ideals, intelligence, and some significant flaws that make him endearingly human. Locke paints a nuanced picture of East Texas and its history. This is a series that needs to be read in order, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next developments.

Heaven, My Home is the second book in this excellent series by Attika Locke. I would advise you read the first book to be able to follow the plot in this one. Both books' main character is Darren Matthews, an African American Texas Ranger. This one focuses on the disappearance of a 9 year old boy, who is the son of a convicted white supremacist. The plot is intricate and emotional, and was a great read.

The following 4-star review was posted to Hillbilly Highways, Amazon, and Goodreads on 9/25/19:

Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is finally starting to get his life together after the events of Bluebird, Bluebird. He is back on the job. If it at a desk, the time home is allowing him to repair his relationship with his wife, and he is doing important work on a federal-state task force building a case against the Aryan Brotherhood. His drinking is under control. The only hitch is his no-account mother blackmailing him, but everything really goes to heck when a boy goes missing on the Texas-Louisiana border.

A boy missing wouldn’t usually call for Darren’s services, but the kid’s dad is high-up in the Aryan Brotherhood. His boss sees a chance to build a case fast—before a new administration takes over and federal law enforcement priorities change. Darren sees a way out from continued questions by a tenacious San Jacinto DA.

9-year-old Levi King disappeared on Caddo Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border. He made it back from the lake though—his grandfather’s boat is in the boatshed and a witness saw him return. Darren steps right into the middle of a powder keg with a short, lit fuse—Levi lived amongst white supremacists living adjacent to the remnants of a feedmen’s colony.

The nearest town is Jefferson, a once prosperous town now surviving on antebellum nostalgia tourism. (Darren and presumably Attica share my dim view of this sort of thing.) Levi’s grandmother Rosemary has the town in a velvet-on-steel grip. Darren isn’t quite at home; Jefferson is a long way from Camilla.

“Nothing about Marion County said home to him. It was not his East Texas. It was zydeco when he wanted blues. It was boudin where he wanted hot links. It was swampy cypress trees where he wanted pines.”

Attica’s writing is still just a bit off. Characters dips snuff under his tongue (between lip and gum is bad enough!); a civil litigator has a hearing for a “deal” (litigators have frequent hearings, but deals are largely outside of court supervision and the purview of transactional lawyers). There are disadvantages to writing country noir when you think small towns have “small, hard, provincial heart[s].” There are greater disadvantages when you are that far removed from your setting.

Still, the strength of the Highway 59 books is Darren’s internal conflict, as embodied by a Texas Ranger uncle and his constitutional law professor uncle. Here the conflict is less abstract and more concrete as Darren is faced with choices that bring real moral peril. The plot is also a really solid mystery and much better than the first book—it is the plot that really carries Heaven, My Home for me and elevates it past Bluebird, Bluebird.

Disclosure: I received an advance copy of Heaven, My Home via NetGalley.

<blockquote><i>"For every story about a black mother, sister or wife crying over a man who was locked up for something he didn't do, there was a black mother, sister, wife, husband, father or brother crying over the murder of a loved one for which no one was locked up. For black folks injustice came from both sides of the law, a double-edged sword of heartache and pain."</i></blockquote>
Attica Locke, Bluebird, bluebird

In this the 2nd installment of the Highway 59 series Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is back and he is straddling that double edged sword. As lawman it is his duty to uphold the law. But as a black man he knows the law wasn't written with men like him in mind and that the scales of justice aren't always equally balanced. Generally tough as nails, his weaknesses lie in his abiding hope for his mother's love and his allegiance to the disempowered. Once again Attica Locke delivers a 5 star read that is riveting, emotional and engaging.

Mystery stories by women of color set in Texas are rare. Attica Locke has told an engrossing and timely story involving white supremacists and children. Highly recommended.