About the Book
WINNER OF THE CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER AWARD
WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
'Thoughtful, piercing storytelling with the power to transport' - FINANCIAL TIMES
'An expertly plotted triple whodunit' - SUNDAY TIMES
Southern fables usually go the other way around. A white woman is killed or harmed in some way, real or imagined, and then, like the moon follows the sun, a black man ends up dead.
But when it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.
So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he is drawn to a case in the small town of Lark, where two dead bodies washed up in the bayou. First a black lawyer from Chicago and then, three days later, a local white woman, and it's 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.
About the Author :
Attica Locke is the author of Heaven, My Home, a Waterstones Book of the Month, Bluebird, Bluebird which won the CWA Steel Dagger and an Edgar Award; Pleasantville, which won the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction; Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award and shortlisted for the Orange Prize; and The Cutting Season, a national bestseller and winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Attica Locke has worked on the adaptation of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere and Ava DuVernay's Netflix series about the Central Park Five, When They See Us. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.
Review :
Mesmerising ... original ... exhilarating ... Locke is building a compelling body of work
A superb thriller ... Locke's message of injustice is the more convincing for being conveyed with restraint
Tight, bright prose ... powerful ... she seems more and more like America's most interesting crime writer
Locke evokes place brilliantly, writes tangy, fluent prose ... an expertly plotted triple whodunit
Memorable characters, engaging prose and a soundtrack of down-home blues make for a winning literary crime thriller
Bluebird, Bluebird is absorbing and Locke's writing is beautiful ... The best crime novel of the year so far
What is most satisfying about this crime novel is its use of the crime as a device with which to explore something much larger and universal ... Locke's writing is both sharp-edged and lyrical. This is thoughtful, piercing storytelling with the power to transport
Elegant ... gripping
A deeply atmospheric thriller blending Southern noir and moral complexity
Ms. Locke is a wonderful stylist, able to conjure vivid impressions with a single phrase
The prose is beautifully rhythmic ... Locke uses her insider knowledge of the area to really get under the skin of her characters, in the process revealing the real beating heart of rural Texan life ... brilliantly executed
A rich sense of place and relentless feeling of dread permeate Attica Locke's heartbreakingly resonant new novel about race and justice in America ... an emotionally dense and intricately detailed thriller, roiling with conflicting emotions steeped in this nation's troubled past and present
Locke is a brisk writer with a sharp eye for the subtleties of how rural white Southerners tend to act as if their little towns belong to them - and react harshly to black independence
One of my favourite books of the past year
This is the best kind of thriller: as literate and thoughtful as it is fast-moving. Attica Locke has bags of style, and sings the blues on every page. A highlight of the year so far, and the curtain-raiser for what promises to be a compelling series
Attica Locke has both mastered the thriller and exceeded it. Ranger Darren Mathews is tough, honor-bound, and profoundly alive in corrupt world. I loved everything about this book
Taut where it has to be to keep a murder investigation on its toes, this novel is also languid when you need to understand just what would keep a black woman or man in a place where so much troubled history lies. Locke's small town murder investigation reveals what lies at the heart of America's confusion over race.
With Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke brings freshness and vitality to a beloved form. From the first beautifully done scene until the finale, this is a very propulsive novel concerning old deeds that keep influencing the present, injustice and courage - a powerful and dramatic look at contemporary black life in rural America
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
Bluebird, Bluebird has the impeccable pacing, memorable characters, and deepening sense of mystery and dread we expect in the finest noir thrillers. But this is so much more. Attica Locke has written a marvelous novel
Attica Locke has built a career on political novels wrapped in the conventions of the crime thriller, and Bluebird, Bluebird burnishes an already impressive reputation
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
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
Incisive ... Locke's superior storytelling excels in Bluebird, Bluebird as the author deftly moves the brisk plot that centres on racism as well as greed, hate and even love
This is Attica Locke's best work yet - and if you've read Pleasantville you know that's saying something. Just by her choice of protagonist (an African American Texas Ranger, tacking between two worlds as he solves a double homicide) you know Locke is a writer who makes bold choices, and whose fiction is powerfully connected to our troubled world
Attica Locke pens a poignant love letter to the lazy red-dirt roads and Piney Woods that serve as a backdrop to a noir thriller as murky as the bayous . . She is adept at crafting characters who don't easily fit the archetypes of good and evil, but exist in the thick grayness of humanness
