Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke Narrator: JD Jackson
Series: Highway 59 #2
Published by Hachette Audio on September 17, 2019
Source: Library
Genres: Crime Fiction, Mystery
Length: 9 hrs 17 mins
Pages: 295
Format: Audiobook
Purchase at Bookshop.org or Audible
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The thrilling follow-up to the award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird: Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is on the hunt for a boy who's gone missing - but it's the boy's family of white supremacists who are his real target
9-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him - and all goes dark.
Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.
An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for antebellum Texas - and some of the era's racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi's disappearance has links to Darren's last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy's grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.
Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself.
Attica Locke proves that the acclaim and awards for Bluebird, Bluebird were justly deserved, in this thrilling new novel about crimes old and new.
Heaven, My Home is the follow-up to Bluebird, Bluebird and I really think they need to be read in order. Heaven, My Home has Texas Ranger Darren Matthews investigating a new case, a missing boy with connections to a white supremacist group, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). But events from the first are still hanging over his head, threatening his career and marriage.
In Jefferson, a 9-year-old boy, Levi King, was out at night in a ramshackle boat on Lake Caddo, but never makes it home. Levi is far from being a perfect child or even a nice child and his father is the head of the ABT, currently serving time in prison. An apparently reformed Bill is worried about Levi’s disappearance, and Darren’s boss sees the situation as a way to gain more information on the ABT.
Locke sets the novel in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election and a Texas in which the repercussions are being felt in the rising tide of homegrown terrorists, racial violence, intimidation, abuse, and killings. The atmosphere is heavy and thick. There’s a mystery to solve here, but it’s a complex novel, the kidnapping is only part of what’s going on in the town. The history of the town and the state, the landscape, the people who have conflicting needs and wants, it’s all coming to a head.
Heaven, My home has an intricate plot, but it doesn’t really have twists and turns, it has more inevitabilities. We’re not surprised who the kidnapper is, but the book is more about the characters, the cultures, and the moral graynesses than the puzzle.
About Attica Locke
Attica Locke’s latest novel Heaven, My Home is the sequel to Edgar Award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird. Her third novel Pleasantville was the winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was also long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction. The Cutting Season was the winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Her first novel Black Water Rising was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke works as a screenwriter as well. Most recently, she was a writer and producer on Netflix’s When They See Us and the also the upcoming Hulu adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.
I want to read this — but I’ll take your advice and start with Bluebird, Bluebird.
I definitely would read Bluebird, Bluebird first. I think you would miss a lot of background just starting with this one.
Both sound like winners and I will get them both. Thanks for the great critique.
Friends and Family Helpful to have in war!
I hope you enjoy them.
I was wondering when an author would write about the Trump era and all that it brought up about our society. While I want to read the series, I may not be able to handle all the pain white supremacists bring.
So. it is clearly after the election, but before he takes office. And I will say in this one it’s not only white supremacists hurting people. They are the reason he’s in town, but it’s more complicated than that.