Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke Serpent’s Tail €16.85

Locke spins a complex tale in her fourth novel. Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger struggling with legal problems and a fondness for bourbon, probes the murder of a white woman and a black man in an east Texas town where a wealthy landowner and the local sheriff have no use for outsiders. The case resists easy solutions amid racial friction, old family secrets, and the brutally violent Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Memorable characters, engaging prose and a soundtrack of down-home blues make for a winning literary crime thriller.