LoveReading Says
My friend Alafair Burke told me to read this book or she would stop talking to me. She was right to put the threat at that level because this is simply one of the best books I’ve read in the last ten years. Like Alafair, Attica is both a writer and a lawyer, so she really understands her material.
The thing that got me right out of the gate is that the narrator is a black Texas Ranger. We don’t often see police procedurals written from the perspective of black law enforcement officers, or in the rare cases that we do, those officers tend to come across as anti-heroes. Attica takes on the racial issues at the core of this story with an unblinking eye, and the reader is all the better for her honesty. You can see why this woman has won or been shortlisted for just about every major award there is, including the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction (for Pleasantville in 2016)
Selected by our Early Summer Guest Editor 2021 Karin Slaughter
LoveReading
About Bluebird, Bluebird
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 conflicted 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 back.
Read the full description
Find This Book In
Attica Locke Press Reviews
Mesmerising ... original ... exhilarating ... Locke is building a compelling body of work. In this age of enduring and renewed racial tensions, we need her voice more than ever -- Esi Edugyan - Guardian
Wonderful ... a superb thriller ... Locke's message of injustice is the more convincing for being conveyed with restraint -- Marcel Berlins - Times
Tight, bright prose ... powerful ... she seems more and more like America's most interesting crime writer -- Jake Kerridge - Daily Telegraph
Locke evokes place brilliantly, writes tangy, fluent prose ... an expertly plotted triple whodunit. -- John Dugdale - Sunday Times
Bluebird, Bluebird is absorbing and Locke's writing is beautiful ... The best crime novel of the year so far. -- Paul Connolly - Metro
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. -- Diana Evans - FT
Elegant ... gripping. -- Claire Kohda Hazelton - Observer
Cracking ... 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. It's uncomfortable stuff at times, but it's brilliantly executed. - Big Issue
Memorable characters, engaging prose and a soundtrack of down-home blues make for a winning literary crime thriller. -- Jeffrey Burke - Mail on Sunday
One of my favourite books of the past year - Harlan Coben
Page-turning. - Elle
Ms. Locke is a wonderful stylist, able to conjure vivid impressions with a single phrase. - Wall Street Journal
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. - Washington Post
In Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke had 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. -- Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth 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. -- Mick Herron, author of Slow Horses With Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke brings freshness and vitality to a beloved form. Her storytelling touch is just so strong! 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. -- Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone 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 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. -- Ron Rash, author of The Risen 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. - Irish Times
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 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 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. -- Oline Cogdill - Associated Press
Attica Locke's Bluebird, Bluebird reads like a blues song to East Texas with all its troubles over property, race, and love. 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. This novel marks Love's (and Hatred's) comings and goings amongst black and white, and all the shades between. Locke's small town murder investigation reveals what lies at the heart of America's confusion over race. -- Walter Mosley, author of Down the River unto the Sea 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 -- Ben Winters, author of Underground Airlines 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 - USA Today
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 -- Houston Chronicle -
