Propulsive and compelling ... digs deep into the tension between "the impulse to police crimes against black life and to protect black life from police" ... loving, elegiac evocations of Texas set alongside extended meditations on displacement, reconciliation and forgiveness, and on what "home" means in a place where it's an idea you can't "exactly touch" -- Sara Collins * Guardian * A powerful, angry, important book. Attica Locke is a major talent. -- Mick Herron, author of Slow Horses One of America's finest crime novelists ... a beautifully wrought mystery and an incisive portrait of the American South in the age of Trump. -- John Williams * Daily Mail * A superb thriller * The Times * A tightly plotted crime novel centring on the disappearance of a child, and a blistering look at race in Donald Trump's America. -- Sarah Hughes * iPaper * Locke deftly shows how crime novels are the perfect place in which to explore the tensions between different people and communities. Her insightful exploration of a post-Trump world offers something genuinely new. -- The Judges of the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction Magnificent ... shines an unflinching light on an ugly side of contemporary America -- Joan Smith * Sunday Times * The most celebrated African-American writer of crime fiction. Although her books are about the black experience in the US, they are universal in scope ... a consummate storyteller. * Financial Times * Praise for Bluebird, Bluebird: 'America's most interesting crime writer' * Daily Telegraph * This is the best kind of thriller: as literate and thoughtful as it is fast-moving. Attica Locke has bags of style, and sings the blues on every page ... the curtain-raiser for what promises to be a compelling series -- Mick Herron, author of Slow Horses Mesmerising ... In this age of enduring and renewed racial tensions, we need her voice more than ever -- Esi Edugyan Locke's writing is both sharp-edged and lyrical. This is thoughtful, piercing storytelling with the power to transport * Financial Times * Attica Locke has both mastered the thriller and exceeded it. Ranger Darren Mathews is tough, honour-bound and profoundly alive in a corrupt world -- Ann Patchett Locke brings freshness and vitality to a beloved form ... A powerful and dramatic look at contemporary black life in rural America -- Daniel Woodrell A superb thriller -- The Times Uncompromising, intelligent crime fiction that refuses to sugar-coat the answers. -- Sarah Hughes * iNews *