Heaven, My Home

Attica Locke writes another page turner. I found myself hanging on her every word. Her storytelling has a way of pulling the reader in, and for a reader up for the adventure, this book is the perfect fit. I highly recommend this book, and can't wait for the third installment.

I came late to the party with Heaven, My Home as I hadn't read the previous Bluebird, Bluebird - which I am now going to read. I just loved Heaven My Home though Darren was a new character to me and I didn't have the full backround. Black American Texas Ranger in a racially rife Texas............absolutely made for engrossing reading. Written with poise, skill, compassion, fervour and spot-on characters. It always amazes me that even in this day and age - ESPECIALLY in this day and age - there are racists and bigots on ALL sides. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised but it's a damning enough fact. of life to be of tremendous concern. This book just tore at my heart. And so beautifully written. Filled with history and pathos with a wonderfully flawed main protagonist but ultimately realistic. I just adored this book.

In the wake of Trump’s election victory, Ranger Darren Matthews travels down Highway 59 to Jefferson, Texas, where nine-year-old Levi King, son of an imprisoned Aryan Brotherhood captain, has gone missing. Strangely, only Levi’s father and sister plead for the boy’s return. Local law enforcement assume he’s dead, his own grandmother, one of the town leaders, remains eerily distant, and Matthews’ boss only wants him to find evidence to implicate his father.

Matthews, though, realizes the local denizens are obfuscating at every turn. An elderly black man, Leroy Page, claims to have seen Levi the night he disappeared, making him the last person to see him. Leroy becomes a suspect, but Matthews doubts his guilt. He’s driven to find out what really happened to Levi, and perhaps escape his mother’s hold having a secret that could bury his career, even if it means making a devil’s bargain. Powerful forces in Jefferson, however, are intent on seeing him fail.

Heaven, My Home is compulsively readable with a compelling and serpentine mystery reaching back to the antebellum era. It brought in just enough Bluebird, Bluebird to both satisfy and whet curiosity. Background to the mystery is the town of Jefferson, a failed port city which capitalizes on its past, hosting ghost tours that visit the sites where white women died but conveniently ignoring the deaths of blacks before and after slavery. The book shows how racism can be so seamlessly institutionalized, those with privilege (whites) can see it only if looking, but people of color are subject to large and small aggressions. Furthermore, it hints at the practical and personal consequences of Trump’s victory which we’ve sadly seen play out over the past couple of years. Darren also has to confront his own biases and his tendency to view black men of a certain age as though they are the same as his uncles.

I did overwhelmingly enjoy the book, but something that worked less for me was the introduction of so many characters who weren’t utilized in the story, for example, a group of Matthews’ fellow Rangers who sound interesting but only appeared in a single scene. Likewise, I felt Levi’s sister, Dana, was savvy and observant, while Leroy’s neighbors, the Goodfellows, were important to the plot, but not as developed as I might have preferred.

Complex and flawed, Matthews presents a welcome alternative to the mystery protagonists who are male detectives, overconfident, and undeterred by rules or procedures. His Eastern Texas district, rural, conservative, and often racist, obstructs his ability to successfully navigate his investigations. Even when he is doing the wrong thing, I want events to work out for him. I recommend this series for readers who enjoy mysteries and who want to understand small town racism.

Thanks to NetGalley and Serpentine Books for providing an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This follow-up to Bluebird, Bluebird brings back Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, a nicely complicated and flawed protagonist who is also a black man in racially-tense Texas. Pitching him against the Aryan Brotherhood make race absolutely central to this book with a mystery that goes back to America's troubled history of slavery.

Locke is a passionate writer who uses fiction to explore history and the way it points forward to contemporary tensions. I did feel that this story slightly gets away from her at points: characters are introduced then forgotten about, and the mystery gets increasingly labyrinthine. Still, Matthews is such a charismatic lead character that I can forgive a lot - intelligent crime fiction with heart.

A superb sequel by Attica Locke. Looking forward to more from this gifted and nuanced writer. Worth the read!

Let me preface this by saying that I loved this book so much that I have already ordered the first in the series, Bluebird, Bluebird, so that I can read it ASAP.

This book was wonderful. I have previously read a book by Attica Locke so I knew that I would love her writing and this book did not disappoint. She is such an amazing writer. From the way she develops her characters to the way she perfectly describes the settings, Locke paves the way for a wonderful adventure for her readers. This book was heavy; it was filled with racism and prejudice, and even as a white reader, I had a hard time understanding Darren, the main character, keep his cool while being slung racial slurs throughout the book. The rural setting and the Brotherhood associations there really made for an "othering" vibe toward anyone of color in this book.

In this story, Darren comes to a rural white town in Texas down Highway 59 where the missing white son of a Brotherhood member is suspected of being killed by a black man, Leroy Page. His true intentions there are to get in to see Bill King, the boy's father, who is in prison for murdering a black man. But after meeting the people of this town, especially Bill King's mother, Rosemary, he decides he must stay and try to find this boy and hopefully save Leroy's life in the process.

Not only did Locke hit the nail on the head with the racism in today's society, especially after Trump came into office, but she also formed a little side story of Darren and his wife, Lisa's, failing marriage. Throughout the book I couldn't decide if either of them really wanted to work on things, or if both were just continuing on because it was comfortable and familiar. Darren clearly has feelings for a woman from book #1 (I am trying to wait patiently to read that one), but doesn't want to hurt his wife by acting on them. There also seems to be a secret between his wife and his best friend that is gnawing at him.

In all, this was an amazing book. The only hard part now will be waiting for the next book in the series. Great job again, Attica Locke!

I will be posting this review to my blog and on Instagram on the pub date.

Action-packed scarcely does justice as a term to describe Locke’s latest, and up-to-the-minute thriller set in East Texas among white supremacists and indigenous Native Americans. Race, slavery, property and the influence of toxic politics on the next generation are the serious themes here, but there’s all manner of other stuff too, not least the central character’s struggles with his conscience and his marriage. Episodes follow each other seamlessly and the ride is relentless, even if the final chapters offer less excitement than what comes before. Nevertheless, it’s deft and persuasive stuff, and the author is quite something.

I thought Bluebird, Bluebird was excellent. This, the sequel, is just as good. (It can be read as a stand-alone book, but I would strongly recommend reading Bluebird, Bluebird first.)

In Heaven My Home, Darren Matthews is still mired in the aftermath of his unethical but understandable behaviour previously. After a period of office work, he is sent to investigate the disappearance of the son of a convicted white supremacist killer because as a black Texas Ranger his boss thinks he may be able to glean information about the racist organisation the boy’s father belongs to. Things don’t go as planned or expected and Darren’s flawed but fundamentally noble character continues to be pulled in different directions both professionally and personally.

It’s a gripping, compelling story and again we get an unvarnished picture of the racism still rampant in some people in the USA and how it has been strengthened by recent political developments. Some of it is raw, ugly and abusive, some is more genteel but no less corrosive and repellent. There is also decency here and an excellent portrait of a (literally) backwater community and its attitudes.

I may have made this sound worthy and a bit turgid, but it’s anything but. I found it completely engrossing and an excellent read; there is some real weight to both its current comment and historical research, but both are lightly worn. It’s an excellent book which I can recommend very warmly.

(My thanks to Profile Books for an ARC via 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.

Let me start by saying I didn’t know this was the 2nd book in the Bluebird, Bluebird series. Even though I haven’t read the 1st book I loved Heaven, My Home and am planning on picking up Bluebird, Bluebird soon. This book kept my attention that’s for sure. I love Attica Locke’s writing and can’t wait for her next book!