Bluebird, Bluebird (Mulholland Books)
A powerful thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire.
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. A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.
Attica considers herself a Texan-in-exile, one with a complicated relationship to the truck-stop towns up and down Highway 59 in East Texas, where she sets Bluebird, Bluebird. It also happens to be where Attica’s entire family, on both sides, can trace their roots back to slavery. It’s a place that gave Attica’s family the values that mattered, even as it consistently broke their hearts. Many black Americans left towns just like those where Attica’s family lived to move north. But Attica will tell you that her family and their lives, then and now, are defined by the very fact that they stayed.
Everything that staying in East Texas meant for Attica and her family—and the intersection of that meaning with the current political climate—was the inspiration for Bluebird, Bluebird. Darren Mathews, a Texas Ranger with a tarnished badge, faces the issues that plague every black American who encounters law enforcement, never knowing quite when it’s safe to follow the rules. Mathews soon finds himself in the center of a murder mystery that turns the classic southern script about race inside out.
Praise for Bluebird, Bluebird:
“Bluebird, Bluebird has the impeccable pacing, memorable characters, and deepening sense of mystery and dread we expect in the finest noir thrillers. But this novel is so much more. Darren Mathews, the black Texas Ranger at the story’s center, is a man caught up in the complex and at times contradictory loyalties of geography, profession, race, and family. He is a brilliantly realized character, and in his refusal to settle for easy answers, he leads himself and the reader toward the most elemental of contradictions: the inextricable link between hate and love. Attica Locke has written a marvelous novel.”—Ron Rash, author of The Risen
“Attica Locke knows how to tell a tale, her voice so direct and crisp that the dust from the side of Highway 59 will settle on your hands as you hold Bluebird, Bluebird. Nothing comes easy in Shelby County, where the lines between right and wrong blur a little more with each heartfelt page, and love and pain live together as one under the big Texas sun.”—Michael Farris Smith, author of Desperation Road and Rivers
“Attica Locke is a must-read author who writes with power, grace, and heart, and Bluebird, Bluebird is a remarkable achievement. This is a rare novel that thrills, educates, and inspires all at once. Don’t miss it.”—Michael Koryta, author of Rise the Dark “Attica Locke knows Texas, a place that has shaped both her characters and her life. Locke’s new book, Bluebird, Bluebird, is evidence of her deep knowledge and love of her community and a deep talent for writing hype thrillers that also manage to be timely, relevant and keenly insightful.”—Joe Ide, author of IQ and Righteous
Attica Locke is the author of Pleasantville, which won the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was long-listed for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction; Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award; and The Cutting Season, a national bestseller and winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. She was a writer and producer on the Fox drama Empire. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.