BOOK REVIEW: Heaven, My Home (Highway 59, #2) by Attica Locke

Heaven, My Home is the second in a series of police procedural books about a Black Texas Ranger written by Attica Locke (who is also well-known for her trenchant writing on television shows such as Little Fires Everywhereand Empire). The main character in the books is Darren Matthews, and the central tension of the books come from the conflicts and circumstances that arise when one of the very few Black man in a predominantly white prestigious crime-fighting organization like the Texas Rangers has to interact with rednecks in rural sections of the state.

In Bluebird, Bluebird, Darren was involved in trying to solve a pair of murders with racial overtones (the bodies of a black man and a white woman are found dumped separately in a nearby river a few days apart) in a very small town up Highway 59 from Dallas. In the sequel, Heaven, My Home, Darren is asked to drive up Highway 59 to the Southern gothic tourist destination of Jefferson to find a missing 10-year-old kid, Levi King. Levi just happens to be the son of jailed notorious white supremacist Bill King and was last seen alive by Leroy Page, an elderly Black man who happens to own most of the property near Lake Caddo in an area called Hopetown where Native Americans, African Americans and poor Whites have been squatting for years. The child’s grandmother Rosemary King is the richest person in the nearby town of Jefferson but doesn’t seem that worried about her kin’s well-being, but Rosemary does seem fixated on getting her greedy hands on the Leroy’s deed to Hopetown.

If the story in Heaven, My Home doesn’t seem complicated enough there are still several unresolved issues from the first book. Because of this, Darren is currently being blackmailed by his own ne’er-do-well mother to keep quiet that she has a piece of evidence that if it were revealed Darren knew existed and were given to authorities might not only lead to him losing his job, but potential indictment and prosecution. Additionally, while Darren’s marriage started off in an “it’s complicated” phase in the first book, it morphs into the slow-motion train wreck stage when he starts noticing oddly charged interactions between his best friend and wife and this leads him to reach out to the widow he was powerfully (and chastely) attracted to in the first book.

The writing is delightful in both books and the mysteries are compelling, if somewhat implausibly racially charged, in both cases. One would think these features would make these books resonate with he but, surprisingly, they don’t. Primarily, I just don’t sympathize (or empathize) with Darren. He makes (and made) some bad choices in this book and the previous one. He’s clearly a (barely) functional alcoholic. Of course, there’s a long history of detectives being alcoholic, addicted messes (looking at you, John Rebus!) but here the setting of backwoods Texas repels instead of propelling me.

I hope Ms. Locke writes more books in the Highway 59 series, and I think I will probably get around to reading them, although I won’t feel an urgent need to do so.

Title: Heaven, My Home.
Author: Attica Locke.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 336 pages.
Publisher: Mullholland Books.
Date Published: September 17, 2019.
Date Read: February 20, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

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