Bluebird Bluebird – Attica Locke
Written by Louise Hunter
There are some books which early on you just know that you’re going to read at least twice, and this book is one of them. I picked it up because I love murder mystery/police books, but I had no idea how much more it has to offer.
Set in Texas in 2016, the main man is a black, self-aware Texas Ranger. And lord, he is very aware of the history of racial abuse and tension in his home State – and yet despite everything, he loves it still!
He gives up a lucrative career as a lawyer to join one of the most respected Law Enforcement Agencies in the State – even though by doing so he alienates his wife, and brings to his marriage a time bomb waiting to go off. At least he can show respect to his favourite uncle by wearing the Uniform which they both share.
In case you were wondering, women don’t have an easy time of it here either. The central female character is Geneva Sweet, whose life has been littered with loss and sorrow. ‘The Blues’ remains the backdrop to her past, permeating and colliding with the present in so many ways. She keeps her secrets to herself, burying her inner knowledge with her pain. She won’t offer any help to anyone, especially not the Ranger, even though he is black, and a Texan!
The action takes place in Lark – a small Texan town shielding the worst modern-day racists in The Aryan Brotherhood. The story echoes the Jim Crow Laws of an earlier era, so when a black man and a white woman turn up dead, the racial heat hits the roof.
The background to the story, is another racial case going on before a Grand Jury. Ranger Darren Matthews was at the scene and when the angry white man shouts his mouth off and uses the word Nigger, the Ranger reminds him “one of these niggers is a Texas Ranger who got out of bed for this. I’m not exactly in a patient frame of mind.”
For this part of Texas still plays by the old rules! Past illicit relationships lie hidden, waiting to act as tinder to the burning injustices playing out loud and proud everywhere Darren looks.
The stunning descriptions of the landscape intersect with the stories of the crime, so the Reader is pulled in to both the beauty of the place and the horror of the murders.
The pace of the action marries the slow drawl of the Texan south, with the fast running investigation that leads to a superb reveal of the sorry truth.
Attica Locke, the author, is the writer of the Fox TV show Empire, and lays bare her firsthand knowledge of the evils of the south, together with her own love of the area.
