Highway 59 by Attica Locke – serie

WINNER OF THE CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER AWARDWINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL'Thoughtful, piercing storytelling with the power to transport' - FINANCIAL TIMES'An expertly plotted triple whodunit' - SUNDAY TIMESSouthern fables usually go the other way around. A white woman is killed or harmed in some way, real or imagined, and then, like the moon follows the sun, a black man ends up dead.But when it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he is drawn to a case in the small town of Lark, where two dead bodies washed up in the bayou. First a black lawyer from Chicago and then, three days later, a local white woman, and it's 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.

A Waterstones Thriller of the MonthShortlisted for the Orwell PrizeA Sunday Times Book of the Year'Political crime fiction of the highest order' - SUNDAY TIMES'A propulsive and compelling novel' - GUARDIANNine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; instead he found himself all alone, adrift on the vastness of Caddo Lake. A sudden noise - and all goes dark.Ranger Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little 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. With Texas already suffering a new wave of racial violence in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, a black man is a suspect in the possible murder of a missing white boy: the son of an Aryan Brotherhood captain. In deep country where the rule of law only goes so far, Darren has to battle centuries-old prejudices as he races to save not only Levi King, but himself.'One of America's finest novelists' - DAILY MAIL'A searingly exciting story' - SUNDAY EXPRESS

* THE BLISTERING FINAL INSTALMENT OF THE AWARD-WINNING HIGHWAY 59 SERIES *** WINNER OF THE CRIME FICTION LOVER BOOK OF THE YEAR EDITOR'S CHOICE **** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AWARD **** A FINANCIAL TIMES CRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR **** AN OBSERVER CRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR **'One of America's finest crime novelists' - DAILY MAIL'Lyrical, complex and deeply engaged... this is top-quality crime fiction' - OBSERVER'A searing story about race and class. Locke's writing is exceptionally vivid' - SUNDAY TIMESTexas Ranger Darren Mathews has handed in his badge. A choice made three years before, which served justice if not the law, means that he may now stand trial. And his mother - an intermittent and destructive force in his life - is the cause of his fall from grace.And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case.Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.

* THE BLISTERING FINAL INSTALMENT OF THE AWARD-WINNING HIGHWAY 59 SERIES *** WINNER OF THE CRIME FICTION LOVER BOOK OF THE YEAR EDITOR'S CHOICE **** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AWARD **** A FINANCIAL TIMES CRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR **** AN OBSERVER CRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR **'One of America's finest crime novelists' - DAILY MAIL'Lyrical, complex and deeply engaged... this is top-quality crime fiction' - OBSERVER'A searing story about race and class. Locke's writing is exceptionally vivid' - SUNDAY TIMESTexas Ranger Darren Mathews has handed in his badge. A choice made three years before, which served justice if not the law, means that he may now stand trial. And his mother - an intermittent and destructive force in his life - is the cause of his fall from grace.And yet it is his mother's reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl's own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren's mother wants her son to work the case.Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don't want her found, it is his own family's history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.