Bluebird, Bluebird

2017 | Thriller

Southern fables usually go the other way around: a white woman killed or harmed in some way, real or imagined, and then, like the moon follows the sun, a black man ends up dead.

Highway 59 is the forgotten route that connects backwoods towns across Texas. It's a place that time – and justice – seem to have forgotten. But then, two bodies wash up in a bayou outside the tiny town of Lark in three days: a poor local white girl, barely nineteen, and a well-to-do African-American lawyer from Chicago.

Darren Mathews is a Texas Ranger on the brink of indictment. His marriage is failing and he's losing himself to the bottle – until he hears about these murders. There’s no clear connection between the victims, but as fear and paranoia begin to grow, the town's racial fault lines threaten to erupt.

Unable to ignore his instincts, Darren risks everything on this last case. But the locals don't take kindly to a black Ranger asking too many questions, and Darren soon finds the target on his own back ... The first in a blockbuster series set along Highway 59, history casts a long shadow in this high-stakes, small town thriller.

Attica Locke (Author)