Books by Attica Locke
Texan Attica Locke’s noir novel Black Water Rising was nominated for numerous awards and long-listed for the Orange Prize. The New York Times compared it to the work of Dennis Lehane. A successful screenwriter, Locke now lives in Los Angeles.
Guide Me Home
by Attica Locke
☆ Shortlisted for the 2025 CWA KAA Gold Dagger
Guide Me Home is the final book in Attica Locke's trilogy featuring Darren Mathews, a Texas Ranger who happens to be Black. (You don't need to read the first two books in the trilogy—the award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird and Heaven, My Home—but you'll probably want to). The novel opens in the Pine Curtain in East Texas and really evokes the places near Highway 59 in Texas, where the action takes place, as well as the feelings as Mathews struggles with alcohol, his relationship with his mother, and what it means to be Black in America. The plot focuses on a student who goes missing from a sorority house at the local university.
“It’s the second book in the series, but you don’t have to read the first one. Like Megan Abbott, Locke is a fantastic writer…The fact that Locke has a Black Ranger in this book is really daring. They exist, but Rangers are predominantly white. It breaks with history. When I read about the first novel, I thought, ‘Wow, that is really interesting.’ I like this novel because he gets called to a case. There’s a missing boy, and the family are a bunch of white supremacists. They live in a town that makes its money from tourism by being an antebellum town.” Read more...
Crime Fiction and Social Justice
Karin Slaughter, Thriller and Crime Writer
The Cutting Season
by Attica Locke
“A writer wise beyond her years” (Los Angeles Times).
“Locke writes with equal amounts grace and passion… I’d probably read the phone book if her name were on the spine.” (Dennis Lehane)
“A leisurely and luxuriantly Southern book that is rich with detail.” (New York Times)
“A mystery that expands the whole idea of the mystery.” (Los Angeles Times)
“Locke blends Louisiana’s past with its present, tackling race, self-identity, and corporate corruption.” (The Economist)
Interviews with Attica Locke
The best books on Texas, recommended by Attica Locke
The author of the acclaimed noir novels Black Water Rising and The Cutting Season, Attica Locke, tells us about stories of freed slaves, oil barons and gangsters on the run – books that capture the outlaw spirit of her home state.
Interviews where books by Attica Locke were recommended
Crime Fiction and Social Justice, recommended by Karin Slaughter
Many of us enjoy thrillers because of the pacy story, but good crime fiction has always been about society, says American novelist Karin Slaughter. She recommends five crime novels that are not only great reads but “pry the scab off the human condition.”
The Best Mystery Books of 2025
Welcome to our running list of the best mystery books of 2025, which we'll be updating throughout the year. Our definition of mystery is broad, and can include any novel that has a crime at its heart with (ideally) an unexpected plot twist. Throughout the year, we'll be looking out for new mystery books as they're published and adding them whenever we think they're worth reading.
