Black Water Rising - (Jay Porter) by Attica Locke (Paperback)

About the Book

From a powerful new voice in American fiction comes a brilliant debut legal thriller, written in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Scott Turow, involving murder, greed, and redemption and set in the oil boomtown of 1980s Houston.

Book Synopsis

Attica Locke--a writer and producer of FOX's Empire--delivers an engrossing, complex, and cinematic thriller about crime and racial justice

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist (Mystery/Thriller)
Edgar Award Nominee (Best First Novel)
The Orange Prize for Fiction (Shortlist)

"A near-perfect balance of trenchant social commentary, rich characterizations, and action-oriented plot.... Attica Locke [is] a writer wise beyond her years."
-- Los Angeles Times

"Atmospheric... deeply nuanced... akin to George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane.... Subtle and compelling."
-- New York Times

--James Ellroy, author of American Tabloid and L.A. Confidential

From the Back Cover

Attica Locke--a writer and producer of FOX's Empire--delivers an engrossing, complex, and cinematic thriller about crime and racial justice

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist (Mystery/Thriller)
Edgar Award Nominee (Best First Novel)
The Orange Prize for Fiction (Shortlist)

"A near-perfect balance of trenchant social commentary, rich characterizations, and action-oriented plot.... Attica Locke [is] a writer wise beyond her years."
-- Los Angeles Times

"Atmospheric... deeply nuanced... akin to George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane.... Subtle and compelling."
-- New York Times

Review Quotes

"Black Water Rising is a stylish, involving literary thriller with a strong emphasis on human politics and character. An auspicious debut from Attica Locke." - George Pelecanos, author of The Turnaround
"What a ride! Black Water Rising is a superlative debut; a wonderful treatise on the Texas 1980s; the best bad town novel in some time. Attica Locke is a stand-out in every imperative-young-writer way." - James Ellroy, author of American Tabloid and L.A. Confidential
"[A] deeply nuanced story . . . As Scott Turow has done, Ms. Locke uses small, incremental deceptions to draw her main character into big and dangerous mistakes . . . Subtle and compelling." - New York Times
"Locke gives readers a well-paced suspense tale. . . . Let's hope Locke has more novels in her. Any author who can make readers actually like a low-rent lawyer has talent to spare." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A crackling thriller from Attica Locke. . . . Locke's writing is sharp and authentic; you can practically hear the Southern drawl emanating off the page . . . a writer we'll need to keep an eye on" - Sacramento Book Review
"Black Water Rising [is] a strong and whip-smart debut from Attica Locke. Set in the author's native Houston, it's both a compelling mystery and a sharp, literate portrait of the social layers within that city's black community." - Seattle Times
"[An] extraordinary debut. . . . This kind of racial authenticity and insight is rarely seen in the genre outside of Walter Mosley and Dennis Lehane. Plus, [Locke] really knows how to build suspense." - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"This is the first novel by Locke, a screenwriter; it is, Charles McGrath said in The Times, 'even better' than the slick book its author set out to write." - New York Times, Paperback Row
"Attica Locke is a vivid storyteller. . . .Without pretence, she provides an engaging story about one man's enduring struggle for justice and equality. It's a must for your summer reading list." - Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers
"Locke deftly moves between past and present action . . . [putting] her in the company of master thriller writers such as Dennis Lehane or Scott Turow. Black Water Rising is a near-perfect balance of trenchant social commentary, rich characterizations, and an action-oriented plot that . . . moves rapidly toward some explosive revelations . . . Attica Locke [is] a writer wise beyond her years." - Los Angeles Times
"Locke deftly moves between past and present action . . . [putting] her in the company of master thriller writers such as Dennis Lehane or Scott Turow. . . . Attica Locke [is] a writer wise beyond her years." - Los Angeles Times
"This debut thriller charges out of the gate, boldly establishing Locke as a name to look out for in years to come." - Sarah Weinman, National Post
"A strong and whip-smart debut from Attica Locke. . . . a compelling mystery . . . The good, the bad, the subtle but relentless humiliation--it's all vividly there." - Seattle Times
"[An] atmospheric . . . deeply nuanced story . . . with a serious, stirring moral urgency akin to that of George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane. . . . As Scott Turow has done, Ms. Locke uses small, incremental deceptions to draw her main character into big and dangerous mistakes . . . Subtle and compelling." -The New York Times" - New York Times
"A crackling good Houston-based mystery that captures the spirit of the boomtown era of the early 1980s . . . Intriguing . . . In the guise of a summer mystery, [Locke] subtly examines the history of race relations and the transition to an integrated America." - West University Examiner
"Publishers like to pepper their hypewithwords like 'superlative, ' 'auspicious, ' 'universal, ' and 'dazzling' (all used about this book), claims that are usually ignored. This time, though, they're absolutely right. If you only read one suspense novel this summer, make it Black Water Rising." - Mystery Scene Magazine
"Locke shines . . . this is a rare occasion where the hype is deserved. . . . Locke seamlessly weaves history, suspense, and passion in this promising tale that will linger long after this season." - Essence
"Locke's debut thriller ends in a satisfying whirlwind of drama." - Library Journal
"Black Water Rising reads like a hard-boiled thriller, but the real trick resides in Locke's ability to personalize an overlooked part of American history and show how far-reaching, how entrenched, it is in today's social, political, and cultural fabric." - San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Black Water Rising is an excellent book by any measure, but as a debut, it is nothing short of astonishing." - BookPage
"Attica Locke's first novel, Black Water Rising, which Janet Maslin called 'subtle and compelling' in The New York Times, is an even better book than its author had in mind...The book cleverly replaces the kind of cold-war paranoia that used to animate thrillers with racial paranoia instead." - New York Times
"Debut novelist Attica Locke comes charging out of the chute with Black Water Rising, a work that might simplistically be described as a legal thriller. That description, however, ignores the complex social layering at its heart. . . . Jay is a complex character, deliciously so, and one fully capable of bearing the strands of plot Locke weaves around his neck. Locke's screenwriting background shows through nicely in the novel's pacing, but she never puts turning a page ahead of building her characters." - Denver Post
"An astonishingly accomplished debut . . . It's a completely absorbing, gorgeously written early 1980s story . . . Locke will earn well-deserved comparisons to Dennis Lehane for this work . . . her descriptions are every bit as striking as screen imagery. She can elicit shivers by simply setting a scene with painstaking exactness. . . . This author is destined for literary stardom." - Dallas Morning News
"An astonishingly accomplished debut . . . It's a completely absorbing, gorgeously written early 1980s story . . . Locke will earn well-deserved comparisons to Dennis Lehane for this work . . . This author is destined for literary stardom." - Dallas Morning News
"Locke, a screenwriter with both film and TV credits (including a forthcoming HBO miniseries about the civil rights movement) steers a gritty drama to a satisfying end . . . Locke remains an author to watch." - Publishers Weekly
"First-novelist Locke presents a searing portrait of a man struggling to reconcile the bitterness of his life experiences with the idealism of his convictions. Like Dennis Lehane, she skillfully deploys the conventions of the thriller while also presenting biting social commentary, a sure sense of place, and soulful characters." - Booklist (starred review)
"Locke expertly etches a portrait of her anxiety-ridden protagonist, and she animates the complex plot with the assurance of a practiced screenwriter." - Kirkus Reviews
"Locke flawlessly melds social commentary into an action-packed crime fiction, never allowing the briskly paced Black Water Rising to be bogged down by her scintillating look at racism.... Locke proves herself an author to watch with Black Water Rising, clearly one of the year's best debuts." - South Florida Sun Sentinel