Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD by Attica Locke is a mystery and police procedural of sorts, hopefully the first in a series to feature Texas Ranger, Darren Mathews. The setting is so well-drawn as to almost be a character itself -- a one stoplight town, named Lark, in East Texas where a black man (lawyer from Chicago) and a local white woman are found murdered within days of each other. Racial tensions reminiscent of Jim Crow days permeate this well-written novel from an award winning author. Locke’s other works include Pleasantville, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction; The Cutting Season which won the Ernest Gaines Award; and the Edgar-nominated Black Water Rising.

Temporarily on suspension for helping a family friend, Ranger Mathews heads to Lark to investigate what appear to be racially motivated deaths. He encounters several memorable characters like the spouses, named Randie Winston and Keith Dale, of the murder victims or Wally Jefferson, the well-off proprietor of a white supremacist bar, or Geneva Sweet who runs a café catering to black clientele.  It’s a suspenseful and very complicated situation for Mathews who garners little support from local law enforcement or from his own estranged family.    

One of the most apt descriptions I’ve heard comes from Walter Mosley who says that “BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD reads like a blues song to East Texas.” BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Consider pairing this highly recommended mystery story with National Book Award nominee A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton or the winner, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.