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Bluebird, Bluebird (A Highway 59 Novel, 1)

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Format: Paperback


Description

A "heartbreakingly resonant" thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy-winning Fox TV show Empire (USA Today). "In Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke had both mastered the thriller and exceeded it."-Ann Patchett When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules -- a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home. When his 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. From a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire, Bluebird, Bluebird is a rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas. Read more


Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mulholland Books; Reprint edition (August 28, 2018)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316363278


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 73


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.88 x 8.38 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #52,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #85 in Black & African American Mystery, Thriller and Suspense #1,655 in Murder Thrillers #2,177 in Police Procedurals (Books)


#85 in Black & African American Mystery, Thriller and Suspense:


#1,655 in Murder Thrillers:


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • 4+ stars
4+ stars - Along Highway 59 running through East Texas is Geneva Sweet’s cafe. Geneva never turns anyone away hungry. Back when black people weren’t welcome in other restaurants, Geneva opened shop, becoming a haven along the highway where they could stop and eat, refuel their bodies. She serves down-home country cooking, with oxtails on the menu as well as black-eyed peas, fried pies, pork sandwiches, and other delicious items. On the jukebox turntable, there’s a terrific selection of blues, Muddy Waters, Mahalia Jackson, and James Lee Hooker sings “Bluebird, Bluebird take a letter down south.” Attica Locke sets the scene magnificently as we sink into a town where race relations are also on the menu, but its offering is not delicious; its deleterious. Darren Matthews has been born and bred in this briar patch of East Texas. He loves home and country and his heart is in his work. A Texas Ranger on suspension, he thinks part of the reason for his suspension lies in his interest in the ABT (Aryan Brotherhood of Texas). There’s another major reason; you’ll need to read about it. When his friend, Agent Greg Heglund sends him to Lark, Texas, he’s supposed to probe the stories behind the two bodies that have been pulled out of the bayou. A black man died three days before a white girl washed up downstream. Usually, Darren thinks, it’s the other way around, the white girl dies first, then a black life enters the void. Darren is struggling in his relationship with his wife, Lisa, who wants him to give up the Rangers. When the dead man's widow shows up to find out what happened to her husband, a little sexual tension comes to the pages. A quarter-mile from Geneva’s is Jeff’s Juice House, an icehouse with a wrap-around porch along three sides, where truckers and the locals can tank up on something besides gasoline. Some of these guys are carrying guns and have SS lightning bolt tattoos. This jukebox plays Waylon Jennings and George Strait. The Juice House and Geeneva’s Cafe play pivotal roles in the mystery behind the two dead bodies. This novel engaged me from the start and held my interest throughout. Locke is a writer and producer on the Golden Globe-nominated TV show, Empire, which is about a family involved in the music industry, so perhaps this accounts for the expertise with which she so masterfully weaves the thread of music around the rich and vibrant characters of ‘Bluebird, Bluebird.’ I enjoyed what felt like a realistic portrayal of race relations and the fact that in this novel, it was the white people who had to be differentiated. There was one clunky spot in the plot; other than that a most compelling read! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2020 by Larry Gutbrod
    • “The nobility is in the fight, son, in all things.”
Review Image by H. P. H. P.
Darren Matthews is a hard-drinking, black Texas Ranger. His job and his marriage hanging by a thread after a friend asked him for help and the other guy wound up dead. He is still on suspension when he takes it on himself to, at an FBI buddy’s urging, head out of town to investigate the deaths of a local white woman and a black man passing through rural east Texas. Bluebird, Bluebird is set in east Texas in the Piney Woods along Highway 59. The copy describes it as “rural noir” and it was the winner of the 2018 Edgar Award for Best (mystery) Novel. It works well enough as a mystery for me (but then I have never been a mystery fan). It is fairly classed as country noir (my preferred term for the subgenre), although it fits somewhat uneasily. But the two complement each other and make for a stronger book viewed with both aspects in mind. Darren steps into a tense situation. He is on thin ice with his bosses. The local sheriff in Lark never requested assistance from the Rangers. The “order of the killings: black man dies, then the white girl . . . didn’t fit any agreed-upon American script.” The local black community is on edge and no more interested in talking to him than local law enforcement. And the local icehouse is thick with the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Darren has a special interest in the ABT, but they may have a special interest in him too. The driving force behind the book and my favorite part is the dichotomy Darren represents. He is a Texas Ranger torn between two opposing views represented by his uncles—the lawman who died in the line of duty and the constitutional law professor. He was set to follow in the footsteps of the latter until Jasper. Rather than turn his head in shame from his home state, Darren quits law school at the University of Chicago and heads home to go into law enforcement. “Like his people, Matthews men going back generations, he was not going to be run off.” Darren is constitutionally inclined to not just back down from a fight but to head towards the fight that needs fighting. With local law enforcement out for blood from the local black community over a white girl's death and shrugging off a black man's death, the tension between the overpolicing and underpolicing of black communities is a major theme. The latter gets far too little attention in the public discourse. Locke’s first two books are set in Houston, and Darren is based out of Houston. Both bring a dim view of small town America that hurts the book. One, it undercuts the thread of racial injustice that runs through the book because it downplays continuing issues in our cities. Two, realism is hardly required, but it detracts from the story rather than add to it, unlike, say, the use of the blues and of the white supremacist gang. But the second half of the book starts to peel back the layers on a Lark that is a lot more complex than Darren realized. One thing that is very realistic is the way that the small town deals with secrets. Secrets aren’t really secrets in a small town. People may not talk about it, but what need is there to talk about what everybody already knows? That doesn’t stop people from guarding those secrets jealously, even where the consequences can be deadly. Bluebird, Bluebird isn’t an action-heavy book, but that scene at the icehouse? I think I held my breath through that entire scene. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2018 by H. P. H. P.
    • An East Texas murder mystery being investigated by a black Texas Ranger
If you like characters that aren't perfect and have flaws you will find them in this book, especially the main character Darren Mathews whose professional and personal life is in shambles when he heads to a small town called Lark to investigate two murders that seem to be connected. The description of the landscape and atmosphere was well done in my opinion, race is a big theme as well and a connection to some of the characters will surprise some. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2023 by Kindle Customer

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