InBluebird, BluebirdAttica Locke had both mastered the thriller and exceeded it.-Ann Patchett

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules — a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders — a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman — have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes — and save himself in the process — before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. From a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV showEmpire, Bluebird, Bluebirdis a rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas.

Attica Lockeis the author of the Highway 59 novels, which include 2018 Edgar Award winnerBluebird,Bluebird and Heaven,My Home; Pleasantville, which won the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was long-listed for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction;Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award; andThe Cutting Season, a national bestseller and winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.

She is also a television writer and producer, most recently forWhen They See Usand the upcoming adaptation ofLittle Fires Everywhere. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.