Bluebird, Bluebird is not an easy read. It’s packed with emotions, thick racial tensions, and family dramas. In Lark, Texas, the racial divisions go back decades, but so do the relationships and the secrets. There have been two recent murders: a black lawyer from Chicago who was found floating in a bayou after being beaten to death, and days later, a twenty-year-old married white woman who worked as a waitress at a roadhouse.

Enter Darren Matthews, a black Texas Ranger, whose life is a bit of a mess. His suspension from the Rangers has been lifted, but only temporarily, pending a grand jury investigation for an unrelated, but not unconnected, event. His marriage is on the rocks and he’s drinking too much. And of course, there’s the independent streaks that so many fictional detectives have. The sheriff is not happy to have him around, does not want the Rangers or the Feds in his county.

The characters on both sides of the law have complex histories and in a small town there are connections that might not be obvious to an outsider. It’s a look at race and family and home. Locke does a fabulous job at bringing the place and characters to life. And it’s a good mystery. We have multiple deaths and multiple killers, a couple fairly obvious and one that surprised me.

Bluebird, Bluebird was electrifying.

What a thriller! The story was engaging and the characters were well-developed. One of those books that keep you reading until the very end.

This is the first book I have read from this author and will be looking out for more stories.

Well done!

I've had this book on my radar for ages, ever since I read Locke's The Cutting Season. Another case of me kicking myself for waiting so long to pick it up!

Locke sets such a realistic, detailed setting, the small East Texas town of Lark became a character itself with a distinct personality. Suspended Texas Ranger Darren Matthews heads to Lark on a tip to covertly look into the murders of a local white woman and a Black man, from ''up north' While Matthews suspicions lead him to activities tied to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, real answers may be found in a six year old local murder.

In Darren Matthews, Locke has created a flawed hero for whom we want to see triumph. I thoroughly enjoyed this atmospheric, expertly paced, mystery.

I highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by J. D. Jackson, a new favorite. Many thanks to Mulholland Books, Hachette Audio and Attica Locke for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely LOVED this book! I am a huge Attica Locke fan now. The way she represents race relations and the problematic mindset of the Deep South is mesmerizing. I can't wait to read the next in the series!

The first novel in Attica Locke's new Highway 59 crime series.
BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD is an excellent start to a new series - set in East Texas, it offers something a little different from many other crime novels available now (at least, those that gain a lot of attention). Introduces an excellent protagonist, is populated by interesting and well-drawn supporting cast. Locke's prose is excellent throughout, and the story and plot pulls the reader through nicely.
Very much looking forward to reading the next book in the series. Very much recommended to all fans of crime/thriller fiction.

A thrilling first book in a new series from the masterful Attica Locke. She's created a compelling character in Darren Mathews, and I kept turning pages wanting to see how he solved the murders in east Texas, but also to see how he could balance his career, his marriage, and his very complicated family. Loved it.

Locke has written a great thriller about Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, born and raised in East Texas.
Excellent series!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I will be posting a full review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Instagram.

I loved Bluebird, Bluebird! I think it has potential to be a classic mystery/thriller - it was powerful *and* suspenseful. Solid story, great character descriptions. Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Really superb. The topic of racism is uncomfortable but needs to be addressed rather than ignored. This book does an excellent job of it while keeping you entertained. Will be reading more from this author. He's definitely one to put on your shelves.

This book won all kinds of awards and you can read elaborate book reviews online if you want. I found the book a bit difficult because I know so little of the cultural and racial intimacies of East Texas. The story is a daunting one which twists history and family and the ways that differing aspirations can tear a family apart.

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is trying to be a good man and a good lawman, but he is fighting the bottle and his wife, who thought she was marrying a lawyer, not a cop. Darren is losing the fight, and despite his great skills as an investigator, he is slowly losing the respect of his superior officers and his colleagues. He takes on a case in a distant town, as a kind of break, or working vacation from his other stresses. Of course, this would not be a good story if the case did not prove to be complex and dangerous.

The book is definitely worth the read, especially as an intro to the 2019 follow-on "Heaven, My Home", which I enjoyed even more than this one.

What a wonderful book. We read this book as the first mystery in a new book club I run at my public library. Everyone loved it. It has that sleepy southern swampy vibe. It was a smart mystery and so good. I am going to be reading the second one soon. Attica Locke is an author I am watching for now.

I found myself really enjoying this book, as it takes place in rural Texas in current times, and addresses some well worn issues, such as racism and how that permeates the justice system and society at large.

An African American Texas Ranger takes on a double murder and unearths some secrets in a small Texas town. It's a complex novel that will get you thinking about the hurdles that minorities face when working in systems that are inherently stacked against them.

Thanks to #NetGalley for an opportunity for a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A solid 4 stars!

An excellent mystery soaked in social commentary about the racism that still exists in small-town America that will shake you, and perhaps awaken you. I couldn't put this down.

The title comes from the John Lee Hooker blues song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QMg-...

'Bluebird, please, take this letter down south for me
Oh, bluebird, take this letter down south for me
Don't you two stop flyin' till you find little Liza Belle for me
Lord, she way down, she's way down in Jackson, Tennessee
Bluebird, she's way down south in Jackson, Tennessee
She may not be home, but, please, knock upon her door
Bluebird, bluebird, please, do this for me
Oh, bluebird, please, do this for me
If you see my baby, tell her I want her to come back home to me.'

I received an ebook copy of this first mystery in the Highway 59 series from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review, in anticipation of the publication of book two: Heaven, My Home, which I can't wait to read now!

Attica Locke’s mysteries are consistently excellent, so when I found a review copy for this first entry in her Highway 59 series, I felt as if I had struck gold. Big thanks go to Net Galley and Mulholland books. This book is for sale now.

Darren Matthews is a Black Texas Ranger, and he’s in big trouble. He’s suspended from the force, and his wife Lisa has thrown him out of the house until he cleans up his act. She doesn’t want to be married to a man that is so careless of his own health and safety; if he takes a desk job and quits drinking, he can come home to his family. But right now he’s on his own, and right now he’s still drinking, and it is in the process of moving from one drink to another that he meets Randie, the recent widow of Michael Wright. The official story the local sheriff tells is that Michael killed Missy Dale, a Caucasian woman whose body was dragged from the swamp behind Geneva’s bar, and then himself. The only problem with that theory, Darren discovers, is that Michael died before Missy. Darren thinks they were both murdered.

As Darren goes deeper into the case, after receiving short-term, conditional support from his boss, he finds more elements that suggest a murder and subsequent cover-up. He’s closer to the truth; the sheriff and another local big-shot are closer to apoplexy; and he’s less likely to go home to Lisa.

Attica Locke is one of a handful of consistency brilliant mystery writers in the US. Her capacity to carry me to the murky rural South and create taut suspension that makes me lean forward physically as I follow the story is matchless. I’ve read more than a hundred other books between her earlier work and this one, yet I still remember the characters, the setting, and above all, that brooding, simmering dark highway. This is what sets her apart from other authors in an otherwise crowded field.

I also like the way she addresses racism, and here Darren investigates the role of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas; I ache as I read of the continuous injustice that Darren, Michael, and so many others face both within this story and in real life. And I want to cheer when Darren says that he will never leave, because the ABT and other White Supremacy groups don’t get to decide what Texas is. It is as much his story as it is theirs, and he will fight for it.

“Darren had always wanted to believe that theirs was the last generation to have to live that way, that change might trickle down from the White House. When, in fact, the opposite had proven true. In the wake of Obama, America had told on itself.”

Darren risks his life once again in his determination to dig up the rotten hidden truth and lay it out in the sun where everyone can see it. The ruling scions of Lark are equally determined to prevent him from doing it. The intensity of this thing is off the charts, but fortunately I know this author’s work well enough not to start reading it close to bedtime, because once I am into the book’s second half, I will have to finish it before I can do anything else, including sleep.

The good news for me and for other Locke fans is that this is the beginning of a series. I received this galley after publication, and now the second of the Highway 59 series, Heaven, My Home, is slated for release in September.

Highly recommended.

I absolutely loved this book. The main character felt like I knew him. The small town politics and the big fish in a little pond mentality is familiar to anyone who has lived in a small town. The Ranger's demons kept him conflicted and made it easy for us to want him to win the battle. There were several story lines that I didn't see coming...the baby's father especially...but that made the book even better. This is one of the books that when I finished it, I really wanted to know what happened to everyone after the last page. Great, great, great book.

This novel won Attica Locke an Edgar Award and presents the story of a black Texan ranger. This is more than a mystery book, by delving into delicate issues about race and identity. Racial tensions are at the heart of this book, while we follow our protagonist's investigation into the death of a black male lawyer from Chicago and of a local white waitress whose bodies washed ashore. Locke plays with issues such as the contrasting notions of justice hold by the black law enforcement and the white public officials, but there are no black and white truths being put forward, only multiple layers and shades by which one's identity is portrayed. This is a fantastic gain for the thriller genre, often accused of offering superficial and light reading.

"Bluebird Bluebird" by Attica Locke is a well-constructed racial murder mystery set in small town Texas that nicely twists and turns with an ending that opens up to a potential sequel.

The story starts with Darren, a rare black Texas Ranger, defending himself on the stand for his response to an older black man shooting a known white supremacist in self-defense. While on probation, he learns that a body of a black man and a young white woman washed ashore two days apart in nearby Lark. He weasels himself into the investigation and learns the male victim had traveled from Chicago to give an ex-musician an old guitar as part of his uncle's last wishes. Darren feels a close connection to the victim who had graduated from the law school he had once attended but didn't finish, as his wife brings up a lot. It turns out the ex-musician, Joe Sweet, had been murdered years before in the diner owned by his 70-something wife, Geneva. It's also the diner the female victim had been a waitress. As Darren puts together the pieces of the two victims and how their lives intertwined one night at the diner with its own controversial history, he tries to deal with what's left of his career, his marriage, and his desire to solve the crime.

Though not a fan of racial murder mystery, I enjoyed this story because the pacing was even with flawed characters that are still likable. Also an FX drama is in the works, so it'll be interesting to see how the characters leap off the page onto the screen.

I am deeply ashamed of the review I am about to write here.

Ashamed because my words cannot do justice to Attica Locke's writing and prose.

Bluebird, Bluebird is basically your classic "Whodunnit" novel. Except that it's not. Far away from it.

Let's talk quickly about the "mystery" aspect of the book.
Locke writes in the traditions of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, only good! (i'm sorry about this one, Iles and Lehane are tremendous writers, but Locke blows them out of the water, in my humble opinion).
The story is tight and well crafted, the details are important and Locke provides just enough back story and details to leave us guessing until the end. That part alone should have you get your credit card out of your wallet and run off to your local independant bookstore and pickup a copy.

God Almighty, what a voice!! What a powerful literary voice Attica Locke is.
This novel, of the utmost importance in today's political landscape, is written in such a beautiful way that it had me shed a tear or two.
Locke's writing feels so real and is so deeply encrusted in today's reality that even though I live in a very multicutural and multiethnic place where I witness practically zero of the themes covered in this novel, I could feel the reality of it all crushing me like a punch in the face.
Locke seems to master East Texas the same way Ron Rash masters Appalachia and the same way Stephen King masters Maine.

She is that good.

I will definitely pick it up one more time in a not so distant futur and read it, slowly, pacing myself, just to enjoy Attica Locke's prose and writing.

God, what a voice.

Thank you for a copy of this book. I understand this book was well loved, and wanted to give this a try. Unfortunately gritty detective novels have never been my thing and it appears to continues to be that way.