Book Review: Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
Black Water Rising
by Attica Locke
Serpent’s Tail; 448 pages
Buy from Amazon UK
Shortlisted for this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction, Black Water Rising is the debut crime thriller from American screenwriter Attica Locke.
One night, while celebrating his wedding anniversary on a boat trip, lawyer Jay Porter hears gunshots and a woman scream before she hits the water. Reluctant to get involved, Jay eventually rescues the drowning woman. This is start of Jay’s roller-coaster involvement in uncovering a conspiracy that stretches all the way up to the government. Jay is an anti-hero filled with fear and paranoia throughout his search for the truth which threatens to derail the safe life that he’s created with preacher’s daughter Bernie.
Haunted by the death of his father, who died before he was born, and his close brush with the law as a college student involved in the fight for racial equality in the 1970s, Jay struggles to face up to his past. Bernie realises that she doesn’t know the real Jay whilst his old love, Mayor Cynthia Maddox, knows him only too well.
Set in 1980s Houston and close enough to the 1960s to feel the remnants of the Deep South’s antipathy towards racial equality, Black Water Rising is no ordinary crime thriller. There’s a murder to solve and very early on we know who the killer is but this novel is concerned with why the murder was committed. The Black Longshoreman Union’s fight for equal rights, the Mayor’s resolve to preserve the city’s economy, corporate greed, secret oil reserves and price-fixing, along with shady characters and an ever-present threat to Jay’s life come together in a complexly plotted novel.
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This is a rich and engaging story written entirely from Jay’s perspective and in the present tense. It draws you into experiencing Jay’s life as it descends into turmoil. It’s also a study in the human psyche where growing fear and paranoia lead to bad judgements as Jay finds himself pulled deeper into uncovering an unpalatable truth which leads him, ultimately, to take on those in power.
Locke weaves together an intelligent and sophisticated crime thriller. It’s no accident that her much-lauded debut novel, also shortlisted for the Edgar First Novel Award and LA Times Mystery/Thriller Book Prize, is well-crafted as she puts her screenwriter credentials to good use to present a flawed character on his way to redemption, the theme of many a movie.
Ms Locke’s Black Water Rising is exquisitely written and has many scenes taken directly from the life of her father, a radical activist in the 60′s . It is very relevant that she was named ATTICA.
Her novel is highly deserving of the nomination for the ORANGE Book Award.