Black Water Rising (Locke) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Atmospheric…deeply nuanced story…[Locke] is able to write about Jay's urgent need to behave manfully and become a decent father with a serious, stirring moral urgency akin to that of George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane.... Subtle and compelling as it is, Black Water Rising is at times overwritten. There are endless references to Jay’s fear, nausea, timidity and general quailing, long after any sensate reader has come to understand what ails him.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Jay Porter, a struggling black lawyer and the protagonist, is more than casually wary of the police and keeps three guns handy just in case. But then no one completely trusts anyone here. The book cleverly replaces the kind of cold-war paranoia that used to animate thrillers with racial paranoia instead.
Charles McGrath - New York Times Book Review


[W]hen a mystery plot is all knotted up and largely devoid of compelling characters or atmosphere, then it's in trouble. That's the kind of trouble Attica Locke's debut novel, Black Water Rising, lands in immediately after an engrossing first chapter.... The plot that proceeds from [its] attention-getting opening is murkier than the bayou after a crawfish convention. All of these circumlocutions would be tolerable if the characters had any heft; instead, all of them, including Jay, feel sketchy. Locke comes to mystery fiction from her career as a screenwriter....[and her] screenwriting background squeaks all too loudly in many transitional moments.
Maureen Corrigan - Washington Post Book World


(Audio version.) This extraordinary debut focuses on Jay Porter, a black lawyer in Houston struggling to become upwardly mobile while weighed down by a past as a civil rights worker who was betrayed and disillusioned. His moral fiber is put to the test when he's witness to a murder that eventually places him and his pregnant wife in jeopardy. It's a good thriller setup, but what distinguishes Locke's story are the glimpses into Porter's past, which, in turn, focus on the racial rebellions on campuses in the '60s (the author has written an upcoming HBO miniseries on the civil rights movement). Dion Graham's whispery, almost sing-song narration seems initially inappropriate, but, oddly, as the plot unfolds, this approach morphs into a mesmerizing intimacy that makes Locke's riveting prose even more compelling.
Publishers Weekly


When Houston lawyer Jay Porter responds to pressure from his wife and jumps into the bayou to rescue a drowning white woman during a birthday dinner cruise he'd planned, he has no idea of the hell he's about to enter. There's a murder nearby that same night. Jay suspects that the drowning woman was involved. Ominous threats convince him that it's bigger than just a simple murder and that the players go all the way to the top of Houston's business and political elite. Only by facing down the racially charged past that's been haunting him for years can Jay find it in himself to overcome his longstanding belief in keeping quiet instead of speaking up. Despite a slow start and a measured pace that fail to give the narrative the expected intensity, Locke's debut thriller ends in a satisfying whirlwind of drama. Deftly exploring social and economic themes during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, she balances Jay's current situation with flashbacks to his past as a student activist fighting for racial equality. Readers who enjoy Stephen Carter's thrillers (e.g., The Emperor of Ocean Park) will want to try.
Amy Brozio-Andrews - Library Journal


(Starred review) 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. —Joanne Wilkinson
Booklist


A debut thriller about an African-American lawyer with some difficult clients and a radical past. Jay Porter smokes too many Newports; he's short on money; his wife Bernie is pregnant; and the slip-and-fall lawsuits that bolster his practice have nearly dried up as Houston heads from boom to bust in 1981. When he rescues a woman from a bayou after gunshots ring out, Jay keeps mum to the cops. His own tangles with "the Man" haunt him: At 19, only a close-call acquittal saved him from going to prison on a charge of helping to kill a federal agent. From his radical past, Jay is left with wariness and memories of a romance with white revolutionary Cynthia Maddox, who turns up years later as Houston's mayor and with whom he reconnects while representing a hooker in a civil case against an oil magnate. Jay needs the mayor's help to protect striking black union members who have come to him after being assaulted by their white counterparts. The book's three intersecting story lines promise nothing but trouble. The rescued woman is either a victim, a killer or a pawn in a scheme to damage Jay; the hooker could bring down the oilman; and the strike could bankrupt Houston. Jay, pulled into this vortex, also struggles with grim memories of his dad fatally beaten by rednecks and Black Panther allies decimated by the FBI. Locke expertly etches a portrait of her anxiety-ridden protagonist, and she animates the complex plot with the assurance of a practiced screenwriter (she's currently working on an HBO series about civil rights).
Kirkus Reviews