BOOK REVIEW: Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1) by Attica Locke

Bluebird, Bluebird is the first book by Attica Locke that I have read. It’s a police procedural, murder mystery novel based in Texas. The main character, Darren Matthews, is one of the very few Black Texas Rangers. I wasn’t aware before reading this book that the Rangers are sort of like a State-based version of the FBI. In other words they have the ability to make a “state” case out of crimes that can supersede local jurisdiction. Matthews is one of the very few Black people in a predominantly white organization and this reality and how he (and his colleagues) deal with race animates a significant portion of the book. And  this story is taking place in Texas, with an infamously racist past and unambiguously racist present.

As with most interesting protagonists of mystery novels, Matthews is a complicated character. He has problems at work and at home. His wife has basically kicked him out, because she doesn’t approve of his job as a Ranger when he just needs one more year of law school to be an upstanding attorney like she is. (Matthews left University of Chicago Law School and returned home to East Texas where he was raised by his twin uncles after the grotesque hate-infused murder of James Byrd made headlines and inspired federal hate crimes legislation.) He’s basically been suspended from his job as a Ranger due to his improperly close relationship with an elderly Black man who the police view as a suspect in the suspicious shooting of a racist redneck who before he died had been harassing the suspect’s granddaughter.

So we aren’t surprised at the beginning of Bluebird, Bluebird when Matthews agrees to do a favor for a (white) friend of his who is also a federal agent to (unofficially) and drive up Highway 59 from the Big City to take a look at the appearance of a Black male body that has recently washed up in Lark, a backwater town in East Texas, population 187. Matthews soon finds out the deceased is Michael Wright, a lawyer from Chicago but. The situation becomes even more complicated than it first appeared when soon after the first body appeared, a second body shows up, and this time it’s a white girl, a local waitress named Missy Dale known for her predilection for spending time in the company of Black men. Surely the two must be related, and there’s no way that the linked deaths of a Black man and white woman won’t be a dangerous powder keg in a hick town like Lark which is known for its long history with the Klan. Are the deaths some kind of hate crime? But the conceit of the book is that the bodies showed up in reverse order. Wouldn't you think it would be the white girl who would be killed first, and then the Black guy she cavorted with killed by the Klan afterwards?

Soon after Matthews arrives in Lark, so does the widow of the Black man, her name is Randie and she’s trying to find out what happened to her estranged husband. The parallels with Matthews and his personal situation are obvious. The relationship between Randie and Darren is complicated. She’s not from “around here” (and Matthews is) so he takes it on himself to show her around and promises himself to try and see she gets justice by solving the mystery of her husband's killing. But, as a knight in shining armor, Darren is more than a little tarnished. He’s got a drinking problem and he’s a little too fond of telling little white lies to people in order to get his way. As a Black Ranger with a badge in a town full of meth-heads, rednecks and extreme poverty he’s got a lot going against him in order to fulfill the ill-advised promise he made to the grieving widow.

The story in Bluebird, Bluebird is interesting because of the complex connections the author, Attica Locke, weaves between the characters (and suspects) in this little town where everyone knows everyone, and secrets have and stories have festered for decades. Both bodies  washed up within walking distance of a roadside hole-in-the-wall restaurant right off Highway 59 run by an elderly Black woman named Geneva Sweet who admits to seeing both Missy and Michael within several hours of their deaths. Geneva also has a complicated history. Her husband and son, both named Joe Sweet, are dead from violence within the last ten years, about 2 years apart. That's a lot of suspicious death in a town this small. Another important character is Wallace Jefferson III, an old white guy who literally owns all the land in town, lives a stone’s throw away from Geneva’s Sweets and clearly once (and maybe still) has had an impossible attraction to Geneva, who a long time ago used to be the hired help in the Jefferson Southern Gothic mansion.

Overall, Bluebird, Bluebird is an interesting, atmospheric novel which poses thoughtful and thought-provoking questions about race, family and the ties that bind people together, both emotional and obligatory. As a mystery novel it’s less successful and I’m not sure Darren Matthews is someone I really want to spend much more time with, but I am willing to spend more time with Locke’s spare, evocative prose and look forward to reading the next entry in the series Heaven, My Home.

Title: Bluebird, Bluebird.
Author: Attica Locke.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 320 pages.
Publisher: Mullholland Books.
Date Published: September 10, 2017.
Date Read: February 20, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.