Today is release day for Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke. Absolutely no one is going to be surprised by me saying that I loved this story. Locke writes stories featuring places I know and characters who feel like home for me. There is nothing better for me as a reader than experiencing a story where I recognize the wholeness of the kind of people the characters represent. Attica Locke has given me that gift in every book that she has written.
In this installment the disappearance of a young boy with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is the dilemma that drives the story. However Locke, as always, makes this simple mystery much more expansive. Darren faces the rising brazenness of the ugliest and most base natures of people who feel that by being born white they are superior when their very way of moving through the world would say otherwise. As a Texas Ranger Darren has to walk a fine line while dealing with people emboldened to behave in abhorrent ways because of what they see is being accepted by what passes as leadership in America right now; which is more than timely. Expanding on Darren's desire to stay connected to his roots, his mother's betrayal of pretty much everything that a parent should be, a marriage that is being tested when the partners no longer seem to have the same values and goals, and familial relationships that are revered but are being strained by secrets are all woven in and around the central story and it was marvelous.
In this installment the disappearance of a young boy with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is the dilemma that drives the story. However Locke, as always, makes this simple mystery much more expansive. Darren faces the rising brazenness of the ugliest and most base natures of people who feel that by being born white they are superior when their very way of moving through the world would say otherwise. As a Texas Ranger Darren has to walk a fine line while dealing with people emboldened to behave in abhorrent ways because of what they see is being accepted by what passes as leadership in America right now; which is more than timely. Expanding on Darren's desire to stay connected to his roots, his mother's betrayal of pretty much everything that a parent should be, a marriage that is being tested when the partners no longer seem to have the same values and goals, and familial relationships that are revered but are being strained by secrets are all woven in and around the central story and it was marvelous.
Locke is one of my favorite authors and Heaven, My Home is added to my favorites list.
***I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.***
9-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him - and all goes dark.
Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.
An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas - and some of the era's racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi's disappearance has links to Darren's last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy's grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.
Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself.
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