Two bodies are pulled from the bayou merely days apart – the first an out-of-town black man, the second a local white girl. Coincidences like these are hard to come by, so Texas Ranger Darren Mathews comes to town in search of the connection and the culprits.
I was always going to enjoy Bluebird Bluebird– an unwanted cop digging around the local riffraff is a timeless recipe for a great narrative. While Officer Mathews does not bust as many heads as The Rock in Walking Tall(1), the black cop must deal with the subtle and not so subtle racial tensions embedded in the history of this small town. His investigation reopens old wounds and brings to light secrets that rock all the inhabitants of Lark.
The plot does not move as quickly as your typical beach read/murder mystery because it isn’t one. Attica Locke meticulously develops each character who I found representative of very real people in today’s society. I had to remind myself that this story was not set in the 1970s but today. Perhaps this is why Officer Mathews does not shoot up the entire town of thugs to find the killer(s) – because that isn’t how the world works. Locke wants to mirror our society to create a story containing the prejudice and even hate that is still present (and even more prevalent) in 2018.
(1) Dwayne Johnson needs to take a break from the big blockbusters and give us another movie where he just beats up small town bad guys.
Verdict: Read it (4/5 stars)
Length: 318 pages
When: You want small town drama that address national issues
Quote: “Criminality, once it touched black life, was a stain hard to remove.”
Also Read: The Dry by Jane Harper
Buy Bluebird Bluebird by Attica Locke