Attica Locke’s 2017 detective novel, Bluebird, Bluebird, featuring Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, was a popular and critical success. Now, in the sequel Heaven, My Home, our beloved and tortured protagonist is back, working a new case farther down Highway 59. And is there a better place for dark secrets than an East Texas swamp?
The 9-year-old son of a man serving time for an assault connected to the Aryan Brotherhood has disappeared on Caddo Lake, the shores of which are home to tribal Caddoans and the descendants of enslaved Africans living alongside Confederate flag-waving whites. Ranger Matthews (as he rightly insists on being called if he detects any disrespect) is also on the run from his own professional and domestic demons. His marriage to Lisa, a posh lawyer who prefers him working a desk job, is on the rocks, and his mother is blackmailing him over an unresolved, and potentially career-ending, issue carried over from Bluebird, Bluebird.
