Heaven, My Home

Nine year old Levi King knows he’s in trouble, a he’s alone on a huge lake in a boat with a motor that won’t start, and that’s just the beginning of his nightmare. Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is looking for the boy, while at the same time keeping tabs on the kid’s white supremacist family, Dealing with a shay marriage and a manipulative mother, it’s all Darren can do to keep his own head above water. Locke’s complex novel about racial tensions and ignorance is as frightening as it is spellbinding

What makes a good book? This book didn't make me feel good...in fact I feel kind of pissed off and disturbed. I don't think I liked the main characters. In fact I'm not sure I liked anyone. The atmosphere was dark, and the characters were dark.

All that being said I'm giving it 5 stars. Why? For all the reasons I just listed. I read a lot of books that tend to blend together. This one won't blend in. It was dark, it was depressing and I was torn between liking and hating the main character. But I was sucked into the story. I NEEDED to know what happened next. And this book made me feel. Maybe they weren't all good feelings , but who says all books have to be happy.

I will definitely read more by this author, especially if the story continues the story of the main character.

I want to thank net galley for an advance copy of this book. It didn't affect my review. Read it for yourself and see if you agree with me.

Fantastic. Locke's description of East Texas puts you along side Darren in the racially charged area where he grew up. I was excited to learn what happened next in the Texas Ranger's life and I can't wait for Locke's next installment.

It's a well written and interesting book even if it's out of my comfort zone.
I appreciated the style of writing, the well written and fleshed out characters, and the realistic descriptions of the place with its issues and cons.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

The hero Texas ranger from Attica Locke's Bluebird, Bluebird returns to deal with unfinished business from the first novel as well as find a missing boy. Engaging and thoughtful, Heaven, My Home is also a timely exploration of the deep roots of white supremacists in Texas and the rest of America. Best for readers who like to think as they read.

I picked up this book and could not put it down! I had to know what happened to Levi and how Darren was going to be involved. I did not know this was the second book in the series to "Blackbird, Blackbird", but I did not feel that it impacted the story in any way that I had not read the first one. However, I will be going back and reading "Blackbird, Blackbird" just to make sure.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Yaaassss! Another great Attica Locke. I’ve been really loving the “grit lit” being published these days. I may have liked this second Darren Matthews installment better than the first. But, keep bringing them!!

Once again Attica Locke does not disappoint. While I preferred Bluebird, Bluebird slightly, Heaven My Home was still incredible. Similar to Attica Locke’s other books, it was incredibly atmospheric. I could feel the atmosphere that she created. Heaven My Home pulls in all sorts of directions. At times I wanted slap Darren across the head, while simultaneously feeling proud of his rebelliousness/idiocy/bravery/boldness. I can’t wait for the third in the Highway 59 series. Thank you NetGalley and Mulholland Books for the advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Texas Ranger Darren is sent to a rural town to search for a missing boy. But before he goes, he’s told his real mission: to investigate the boy’s white supremacist family and the town’s rising tension around race.

Attica Locke is incredible, and this is just the kind of crime novel that I love to dig my claws into. Darren is an imperfect protagonist, and his questionable choices and family drama often get in his way. But he's also trying to do his best in complicated situations. And I love that Locke creates real life, messy crimes and communities. She doesn't shy away from the racism, poverty, and class issues that plague rural Texas. Locke is one of the best crime writers today, and I'll read anything she writes. If you haven't read Bluebird, Bluebird yet, get on it!

I loved the first book in this series but “Heaven, My Home” is even better! I feel like we are getting to the meat of the story with Darren, a Black Texas Ranger, on the case of another racially motivated crime. Searching for a missing white boy puts him in deep with the kid’s family of White Supremacists. It’s a complicated and twisty plot which requires a fair bit of thought and attention but the payoff is worth it. I was not anticipating the boy’s fate and in the end I was surprised. I love how most of the characters are good and bad and it’s difficult to tell which way they will turn. This makes everything unpredictable as you never know who to trust, and even the characters who have earned trust sometimes screw up. In a story focused on black and white when it comes to morality it’s all shades of grey.

What really stands out about this series is the strong sense of place. The writing is so evocative of East Texas that I feel like I’ve been there. The food, the cypress forests, the swamps; it is all painted so vividly that I can almost feel the sun on my shoulders while reading. The other big theme in this series is the absolutely brutal rampant racism. It’s shocking and horrendous. Many times I was livid and just as often I was sad. What a horrible state affairs have developed under the legacy of slavery. There’s still a long way to go in eradicating ignorance and hate and I don’t think it will happen anytime soon. Just a note: This story is set between the last American presidential election and Trump taking office and emphasizes the increase in hate crimes seen by law enforcement in that period. The police and the Rangers lament that it will be much harder to investigate and prosecute the Aryan Brotherhood with Trump as president. This is a story very much rooted in the present social and political miasma.

The character development of Darren has been stellar. I may not agree with all of his choices, especially the one at the end of the book, but he’s been established by the story so well that I feel like I understand him and his sometimes questionable actions. I’m very excited to see where Darren ends up for his next case!

Thank you to Mulholland Books for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

Wow! Talk about timely. Darren Matthews has been working on a Texas Ranger task force investigating the Aryan Brotherhood. But there’s about to be a changing of the guard in Washington. There’s a real concern that the incoming Trump Justice Department might “mistake the Aryan Brotherhood for some sort of honor guard”.

What makes this interesting is that Darren’s new investigation has him looking for the missing son of the head of the ABT. The father is locked up in prison. Oh, did I mention that Darren is black?

I really appreciated the first book in this series. I do think it helps to have read book 1, “Bluebird, Bluebird” because there are definitely plot points that carry over.

I listened to Bluebird, Bluebird, so I don’t think I really appreciated the power of Locke’s writing. Reading this book, it really awed me. This is not your typical mystery.

Darren is a wonderful character, but I also appreciated the depth of others, like Greg and Marcus.

This story moves along at a good clip. There are multiple themes here, but underlying all of them is the tense race relations of East Texas. The history of the region is well researched and interwoven with the present day stories.

The book ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, which hopefully means there will be a third in the series.

My thanks to netgalley and Mulholland Books for an advance copy of this book.

Heaven, My Home picks up a short time after the conclusion of Bluebird, Bluebird with Texas Ranger Darren Mathews back to work after his suspension is lifted -- but this time behind a desk.  He's trying to make things right with his wife and has chosen to stay off the road while working to put together a federal case against the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.  

It's not just the desk job and his fragile marriage stressing Mathews out these days.  His own mother is now blackmailing him after finding a damning piece of evidence in the case that had him on suspension in Bluebird, Bluebird.  

In the midst of his personal drama, Mathews is called to investigate the disapperance of nine-year-old Levi King in the small lakeside town of Jefferson.  Levi's father is a key player in the Aryan Brotherhood and he's currently serving hard time.  It's possible someone has taken his boy to get to him but when Mathews arrives in town, he finds more than a few complicated layers to peel back and local history that has impacted several generations on Caddo Lake.

Locke has crafted yet another intricate and compelling crime novel in the Highway 59 series!  The country noir vibe is still strong, there are multiple plot points that are creating higher stakes, and I'm just as invested in Mathews' personal life as I am in his current case!  Locke skillfully describes racial tension and attitudes in Texas and how it drives Mathews personally and professionally.

This is a series you definitely need to read from the beginning to understand the characters and ongoing plot.  I recommend it to readers who enjoy country noir, mystery, and crime.

Huge thanks to Mulholland Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  Heaven, My Home is scheduled for release on September 17, 2019.

This is the second in the series about Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, the follow up to the hugely successful “Bluebird, Bluebird”, the Hwy 59 series.

This book is every bit as good as the first. It combines mystery with some family drama and historical myth and facts about East Texas.

Darren is back on the job as a Texas Ranger but he has been tied to his desk. He has been continuing his investigation into the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, (often referred to as the ABT) trying to find out the leaders (captains) and collect names of members and what they have been up to and are planning. He agreed to the desk job to appease his wife who didn’t want him on the road and gone from home for long periods of time.

An incident in the east Texas town of Jefferson has his superior requesting that he go to investigate. There is a missing 9 year old boy, the son of a leading white supremacist, there is the feeling that there is a connection between the ABT and the child’s disappearance. Darren is an African American and again faces racism and prejudice in this small town.

What makes this book extremely interesting is the complicated threads between a group of Native Texas Indians who live alongside a group of African Americans in land surrounding Caddo Lake, there are also a group of ABT families living close by on this extended stretch of land.

I had listened to the first book in this series but now reading the second I can appreciate even more the brilliance of Ms. Locke’s writing. Her descriptions of the town, the immense Lake and all of its hidden bayous had me completely immersed in the feel of the raw nature in this area and all of it’s hidden secrets. “Inside the forest they were floating through, there was no sound beyond the tinkle of lake water against the sides of the boat, no world beyond Caddo Lake, Darren had never seen anything like it.”

Darren uses all of his resources and wits to try to find the missing child, “something had rooted his boots in place, some bits in this story that didn’t add up, that played like Russian nesting dolls---open one mystery and find another and another and another and another”. This is just what the reader will experience, so many mysteries, so many secrets, it was great!

I would highly recommend that you read the first book as this is in many ways a continuation of Bluebird, Bluebird. We will continue to watch Darren as he struggles with his marital problems, drinking habit and whether he can rein in his natural instincts enough to work within the laws of the Texas Rangers. I felt that I learned so much about the history of the area and the people who live there. What a great mystery, masterfully written!

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

Attica Locke's sequel to Bluebird, Bluebird is simply phenomenal, confirming her growing stature in the field of literary crime, although I do recommend reading the first in the series before reading this. Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is feeling the threats and pressures of his previous actions, as his manipulative mother, Bell, blackmails him, a mother he has ambivalent feelings towards, it was William and Clayton who had raised him, but he feels an inner need to connect with Bell, even though she is taking him for a ride. His marriage to Lisa seems to have got on track again, at the price of counselling and his move to a desk bound role in the ABT (Aryan Brotherhood of Texas) taskforce run by Lieutenant Fred Wilson. In Jefferson, a 9 year old boy, Levi King, is out at night in a ramshackle craft on Lake Caddo, frightened that he will never make it home. Levi is far from being an angelic child, his father is the notorious Bill King, the head of the ABT, serving time in prison.

An apparently reformed Bill is worried about Levi's disappearance, and that little effort has been made to find him. Wilson sees an opportunity to gain valuable intel on the ABT as he dispatches Darren to nearby Jefferson, with its main industry of a tourism reselling its antebellum glory days that hadn't gone down well with black people the first time round. Old Hopetown is a dying community of blacks and native America Indians that have lived and supported each other on land owned by the elderly Leroy Page, a community facing constant harassment and abuse from white supremacists living in their trailers. Levi's mother seems convinced her son is with his rich and powerful grandmother, Rosemary King, a woman intent on freeing her son from prison but will little interest in Levi. On the assumption that Levi is now dead, Page is charged with his murder even though there is no body. In a Jefferson that is a snake pit of thieves and liars, Darren is made to feel less than welcome, the locals feel free to abuse and behave disgracefully towards him, but he is convinced Levi is alive and sets out to find him with the hope this will alleviate the problems he is facing.

Locke sets the novel in the immediate aftermath of Trump's election and a Texas in which the repercussions are being keenly felt by a despairing Darren amidst the rising tide of homegrown terrorists, racial violence, intimidation, abuse and killings. He has little expectation that the situation can be dealt with, unlike his boss, prior to the new administration taking over, there are just too many of them, an ever growing tribe of emboldened racists crawling out from everywhere and anywhere, both overt and covert. In an atmospheric, richly detailed, and well researched narrative, Locke takes us into the troubling state of small town America and Texas on the cusp of a Trump presidency, presaging much of the horror we have since seen unfold in the nation. Amidst this background, the complex mystery of Levi, and Jefferson engages and absorbs, while the flawed Darren proves to be an excellent central protagonist struggling to keep hold of a firm sense of his own identity. Superb storytelling that I recommend highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

After the events of Bluebird, Bluebird, Darren Matthews is stuck in an office in Houston compiling evidence on the Arryan Brotherhood of Texas. His marriage has found stability, but his mother is blackmailing him about the location of the weapon used in the grand jury investigation. He appeases her with money, but it is a rickety relationship.

His short almost respite is entangled when Darren’s boss sends him to work a disappearance case in East Texas, close to the Louisiana border. Sure they want to find this young boy, but the Rangers would like to use this case as leverage to get info out of the Aryan Brotherhood father and his mother’s wanna-be white supremacist boyfriend. Darren enters the small town as an outsider. Things with his mother go haywire and this current case is messier than it seems. Darren is forced to cover multiple fronts while trying to control his drinking and understand the many layers of history and race in Marion County.

Wow! As impressed as I was with Bluebird, Bluebird, this mystery is an absolute page-turner. Its depth and immediacy to current politics and our conflicts as a nation are staggering. Locke’s writing possesses the raw energy of a man’s pursuit of a higher power. Towards justice or a moral compass. The honest ever-changing reflections that ring true for any person dealing a life’s conflicts wrapped in the history that is both familiar and of our nation.

If you are looking for a series of books to hold you in your seat and satisfy that regional mystery itch, the Darren Matthews books are awesome. I cannot recommend Heaven, My Home enough.

Locke's 2nd book in her series starring Texas Ranger Darren Matthews brings him a little further down Route 59 to a town where the 9 year old grandson of a jailed member of the Aryan Brotherhood has gone missing. Jackson has its own tangled history of the races, not unlike what Matthews found in his earlier case in Lark. He's just trying to solve his case without getting killed by the locals, not get thrown in jail for his involvement covering up the murder of Ronnie Malvo, and maybe save his marriage. Locke has a rare talent: she gives real heft to the characters and especially the places she writes about. You really feel the electric undercurrent of the scenes. All of the characters are flawed, but in meaningful ways. I'm really looking forward to seeing Darren Matthews again. Review from e-galley.

I heard that BLUEBIRD BLUEBIRD was a good book from several of my patrons. I was excited to be able to read this new book. This book was very good and it is not something that I usually read. I think this book will stick with me for a long time. I cant wait to go back and read the first one.

After reading Attica Locke’s BlueBird, BlueBird last year I became such a huge fan of her works that, when I found out that Heaven, My Home (Highway 59 #2) was to be released this year, I had to get my hands on a copy.

This book was everything!!! Right from page one my heart was racing with anticipation of what is going to happen next. Locke can take all my money now, I’ll buy anything she writes. If you are a fan of crime fiction, then I highly recommend this novel.

Thank you Mulholland Books & NetGalley for gifting this DARC in exchange for an honest review.

At the risk of being THAT reviewer...I can't wait for the next book. But you did this to us, Ms. Locke. I hope the next one ties up all these frustrating loose ends at home!

Loved book 2 in the Highway 59 series- but you have to have read Bluebird, Bluebird first to fully enjoy. The closer together you read these the better; I spent too much time catching myself up. As always, it was wonderful jumping back in with Darren. He's such a realistic and flawed character- I swear he could be someone I know. There's a political angle to this but it didn't overly dominate the narrative. In fact, I thought the author did a great job painting a nuanced picture of what motivates the truly racist. Attica Locke's ability to bring the reader into a time and place is second to none. I dare you to get through this book without googling the various settings. All in all, this series gives great police procedural and characters so vivid they could be real. Recommend!

When nine-year-old Levi King goes missing in Jefferson in east Texas, Darren Matthews is sent to look into the case. As a black Texas Ranger, Darren seems an odd choice since Levi is the son of BIll King, a prominent member of the notorious Aryan Brotherhood of Texas(ABT) who is in prison for murder. But for some reason, Bill had requested Darren specifically and it is hoped that, by Darren being part of the investigation, he can convince King to confess to another killing. Darren is not sure he wants to help find the boy since he has already shown signs of sharing his father’s racism but he has his own reasons for becoming involved - reasons that make it imperative he gets King’s confession because Darren is being blackmailed for his own actions related to the murder and by his own mother.

Heaven, My Home is the second book in the Highway 59 series by author Attica Locke and it is one hell of a compulsive read. It follows right after the events that took place in Bluebird, Bluebird, the first book in the series and, although it isn’t necessary to have read this, it certainly helps because much of the action in Heaven is the result of what happened in Bluebird. Heaven also takes place right after the 2016 election of Trump and the rise of racism and the lack of desire to pursue cases against white supremacists by the new administration play a significant role in the story.

Heaven, My Home is a well-written, well-plotted, and completely engrossing mystery. it is a complex tale and Darren makes for a flawed but sympathetic protagonist. The story is somewhat pessimistic but, given the state of the nation right now, it is a fair assessment and depiction of politics under Trump. It grabbed my attention from the first page and kept it throughout. If I were to make a list of the best books I have read this year, Heaven, My Home will definitely be near if not at the very top of the list. The story ends with several unresolved issues suggesting there will be at least one more book in the series and I am already looking forward to see where the next installment takes us.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Mulholland Books for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

Attica Locke is a force to be reckoned with and the first mystery in the Highway 59 series, Bluebird, Bluebird was outstanding, so I jumped when I saw this, the second in the series available to review. My thanks go to Net Galley and Mulholland Books for the review copy. It will be available to the public Tuesday, September 17, 2019.

Darren Mathews is a Black Texas Ranger, and his work is to unmask and prosecute members of the sinister Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. When the story opens we see that our protagonist is still drinking; he and his wife Lisa, who were estranged during the last book, have reached a détente of sorts. He will still drink, but it will be civilized consumption in front of his wife. A glass of beer. There. See, was that so bad? He has it handled. In exchange, he agrees to bring his work off the road, and so he is assigned to a supervisory position directing other officers in pursuit of the ABT. He doesn’t want to drive a desk, but it’s a concession he makes for her.

But Darren has gotten himself into an awkward spot, a compromising one. His mother—a woman that did not raise him but with whom he has recently developed a relationship of sorts—says it’s a shame that nobody has found the .38 used to kill Ronnie Malvo. Mack, who is dear to Darren, is a suspect in that homicide, and his mother has the gun. He tells himself that his frequent contact with her is a sign that they have a closer relationship and that the money and gifts he brings her are a pleasure for him to provide. But it’s not true; actually, his mother is blackmailing him.

And before you know it, he’s drinking hard, anywhere and everywhere that Lisa can’t see it.

Everyone that reads a lot of fiction in general or mysteries in particular develops a mental list of things they are tired of seeing. I for one could die happy if I never saw another alcoholic protagonist; I am also weary of seeing mean mothers. Why does every author have to take a pot shot at motherhood? But for every item on my list, there’s an exceptional writer that gets a pass because their prose is so solid, their voice so clear and resonant, their pacing so flawless, their characters so credible. Locke is one of those writers. (And to be fair, there are other features on my no-no list that Locke avoids nicely.)

So there’s the iffy marriage; there’s the bottle; there’s the blackmailing mama. But that’s not the half of it. Darren is sent into the field, despite his protests and his promise to Lisa, because there’s a missing child--the child of a member of the ABT-- who has last been seen in a historically Black community, and the Rangers need a Black lawman to ease the way of the investigation. The Rangers don’t have a lot of Black officers to call out.

So next thing we know Darren is out in the boondocks, serving as a companion officer to a Caucasian sheriff that doesn’t really want much to do with Darren. In fact, the local power brokers, all of them white, are visibly uncomfortable in his presence, particularly when he enters private homes. And he knows that information is being withheld from him, not only by these people but also by Leroy Page, an elderly African-American man that was the last one to see Levi alive.

Locke is noteworthy for the way she creates a sense of disorientation, a smoldering murk that starts with the setting—swampy, dark, wet—and extends into the characters that withhold information and make remarks that are both overly general but also sometimes loaded with double meaning that he can’t decode. And into all of this mess comes his best friend Greg, a Caucasian FBI man that has been sent in to explore the possibility of a hate crime here.

Part of Locke’s magic is her perceptive nature and the way she segues political events into the storyline. And so the pages fairly vibrate with betrayal when Greg, who knows from Darren that Leroy has not been forthcoming and won’t permit a warrantless search of his home, says that Leroy is guilty of a hate crime. The current administration takes a low view of such matters, Greg points out, and after all, Leroy referred to him as the “HCIC; Head Cracker In Charge.” Darren takes exception:

“Cracker and nigger are not the same, and you know it,” Darren said.
“If we don’t prosecute hate crimes against whites—if that’s what this is,” Greg said, just to get Darren to hear him out, “if we don’t prosecute crimes against white lives to the degree that we do those against black lives—“
Darren laughed so hard the bourbon nearly choked him.
“They need to see the FBI taking every hate crime seriously.”
“So this is the Jackie Robinson of federal hate crime cases?”

It’s preposterous, of course. For one thing, as Darren points out, there’s no body. The child may be alive. But he is shaken by his friend’s behavior, and when Lisa drives out to visit on her day off, Darren is further concerned by how intimately she and Greg regard one another. It’s one more thing he doesn’t need, and at this point he has nobody left, apart from his very elderly uncle, who tells him the truth and isn’t hiding anything. He does his best to help Leroy, but Leroy doesn’t trust him and is also not telling him everything, and he’s forced to recognize that this elderly man that reminds him of his uncles and Mack is, after all, another stranger.

Meanwhile, Darren makes a decision that knocks up against the ethics that his upbringing and his profession demand.

The tension builds and there’s no putting this book down. I stayed up late because I couldn’t sleep until I knew the outcome, which I did not see coming.

Locke is brilliant and seems to me like a shoo-in for a Grand Masters Award. This book and the one before it are highly recommended.

Attica Locke's second installment of her Highway 59 series, which follows award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird, is every bit as compelling as the first. We follow Texas Ranger Darren Matthews as he investigates a missing child in another rural part of Northern Texas shortly after the events of Bluebird, Bluebird, which continue to haunt him.

Ranger Matthews is probably one of my favorite "detective mystery" main characters. He's deeply flawed but there's a constant undercurrent of him trying to do the right thing - even if it's not necessarily the legal thing. Heaven, My Home introduces the reader to several new characters, many of whom are pieces of work, especially the missing boy's grandmother, who seems more concerned with her legacy of power than with her missing grandchild. I also adored the setting of this new novel - Caddo Lake gave me great Louisiana bayou vibes while being distinctly Texas. Locke deftly incorporates fascinating history of the lake and the families that live there into her mystery.

And as in Bluebird, Bluebird, Locke's handling of racial tensions in this part of Northern Texas feels very realistic and balanced. Whereas Bluebird focuses on how racial issues can be warped in a small town where black and white members of a community have lived hand-in-hand their entire lives, Heaven explores racial injustice in terms of property, both pre-Civil War and modern day, in a town where the history is long.

If you enjoyed Bluebird, Bluebird, definitely check out Heaven, My Home. If you haven't read Bluebird, go read that first and come back to this one.

This second entry in the Highway 59 series shows promise for a long-running series. Texas Ranger Darren Mathews once again finds himself in the center of a case where race is a defining factor and time is of the essence in his attempt to find the missing son of a jailed Aryan Brotherhood heavy. Locke treats the fraught racial aspects of the case with thoughtful sensitivity and nuance. The reader feels for Darren, even as some of his choices are questionable. I appreciate the interplay between the ongoing narrative of Darren’s life, marriage, and family with the realities of working his assignment. I look forward to further entries in this series. I will recommend this title and series to mystery and thriller readers who like a complicated protagonist and topical social commentary.

Thank you to Net Galley for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I can’t think of many novels that have as strong a sense of place as Locke’s Highway 59 novels. The setting of East Texas is as important to the story as any character or plot development. In this second novel in the series, Texas Ranger Darren Mathews finds himself back in East Texas to help find the missing son of a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. The search takes him through a web of lies and deceit at the hands of the boy’s family that kept me reading to the end. The ending suggests another novel is coming, and I will be anxiously waiting for it.

In this terrific followup to Bluebird, Bluebird, Texas Ranger Darren Mathews heads to Jefferson, Texas, to search for a missing child. Among the case's many complications: The child is the son of an imprisoned white supremacist. Mathews, who is African-American, must deal with the town's overt and covert racists to solve the mystery.

It's clear that Attica Locke, a native Texan, loves her home state and despairs for it in equal measure. Her Highway 59 novels capture a side of Texas that is too often missing in more mythical portrayals.

Heaven, My Home is a suspenseful, entertaining read. It's also a clear-eyed take on life in the age of Trump.

You can read my Q and A with the author here: https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/books/2019/09/17/attica-locke-s-texas-lawman-is-on-the-case-again-in-heaven-my-home/?fbclid=IwAR2UZ_roXIO2bAxj1CzNzNndNpz7bAhrNuiLKWzd_yVweyk8wAACs2m1t5Y

*I received an early review copy of this book.

I loved Bluebird, Bluebird when I read it last year, and since then, I'd been looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I was so excited when I was approved for this on Netgalley!
This book was so great. I loved the complexity of the characters, and the way history, family, and location combined into a tangled know that I watched Darren Mathews unravel. I've read a bunch of mysteries this year, and this is definitely one of the best.
I'm eagerly waiting for the next book in the series, and if you haven't read these yet, you should. Highly recommended!

Heaven, My Home is the second in this excellent series by Attika Locke. This mystery is set in Texas and features 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. Darren gets involved in the investigation because this might be the opportunity to get more information about a white supremacist group. But his own emotions and sense of what’s right and wrong become complicated when the main suspect is an older African American man. Locke doesn’t shy away from complex contemporary politics and issues, and she delves into the complexity without being pedantic or didactic – in other words, Locke assumes her readers are intelligent and interested in the world – one of my favourite kinds of mysteries.

It’s worth reading #1 before reading this one, because Darren’s moral and emotional struggles carry through from book 1 to book 2. I sure hope there’s a #3 on the way.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to an advance copy.

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.

<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.