Locke’s treatment of its people is at once loving and shrewd. It comes as no surprise that the town had once been a plantation. Lark is a backwater darkened by poverty and simmering with racial tensions. These grisly discoveries lead him into an investigation that ultimately threatens all he holds sacred. It is while on suspension from the force that he learns two bodies have washed up in the bayou in the tiny town of Lark – the first, that of a black male lawyer from Chicago, the second, of a local white waitress. He is also a black man who must negotiate these two often conflicting identities: “He got confused sometimes, on which side of the law he belonged, couldn’t always remember when it was safe for a black man to follow the rules.” As a native of East Texas, with strong ties to home, Darren offers aid to an old friend, a move that jeopardises both his marriage and the job he loves. But Bluebird, Bluebird is a true original in the way it twists these conventions into a narrative of exhilarating immediacy.ĭarren Matthews is a Texas Ranger, working in a division of state law enforcement tasked with investigating everything from political corruption to murder. L ocke’s mesmerising new novel bears all the hallmarks of modern crime fiction: the alcoholic protagonist with the damaged marriage the townsfolk who close rank against outsiders the small-town law enforcement agent with murky loyalties.
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