Pleasantville

In Pleasantville, Locke offers another compelling look at the complex layers of life in a historically black community near Houston, Texas. 

Fans of Locke’s Black Water Rising will welcome the return of Jay Porter, an environmental law attorney with a penchant for taking on sweeping social issues. Although this is a sequel to the earlier novel, which is an Edgar award nominee and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist in the mystery/thriller category, readers will enjoy this story without having read the first book.

Locke does an admirable job of recapping key elements of the earlier story as she builds our sympathy for Jay. He's the kind of guy friends, clients, community members, and family can count on. Always on the right side of social issues, a former civil rights activist, prominent citizen, and a good father, he's a protagonist readers will pull for, even early on in the story.

Despite his virtues, life in 1996 isn't going well for Porter. Fifteen years after his sweeping victory over Cole Oil in Black Water Rising, life has turned some difficult corners. The Cole Oil verdict, which had seemed a harbinger of triumph and better times for Porter and his hometown, hasn’t resulted in swift justice for community members or a financial windfall for Porter's law business. Repeated appeals have stalled reparations as well as the payday Porter was hoping for. 

While Porter's professional disappointments are disheartening, his personal heartbreak is far worse. Porter is struggling to function after the loss of his wife to a disease she'd kept secret. If not for the two children he's been left to raise, Jay Porter would check out of his own life. He has a difficult time persuading himself to get out of bed in the morning, but as always his sense of duty prevails. He's motivated by commitments made to his deceased wife and his knowledge of the need to raise their children as she would have wanted.

When a teenage girl is killed in the neighborhood after being seen delivering election flyers, political intrigue erupts in Pleasantville. Both candidates deny any knowledge of the dead girl or the flyers. The police seem determined to treat this murder as an isolated case even though there have been similar murders in the last few years.

With his personal and family issues and the Cole Oil settlement dragging on ad nauseam, Porter knows he should avoid involvement in the murder case. He is inexperienced in criminal law and unqualified to participate in the case, but when Neal Hathorne, the nephew of a local mayoral candidate, is arrested for the murder, Porter is pressed into service by Neal's powerful family. Porter reluctantly agrees to represent Neal, temporarily, as a favor.

Despite his best intentions, Porter soon finds himself entangled in a web of political corruption and dark family secrets that will keep readers turning pages until the wee hours of the night. Eventually, everything Porter values most, including his family, will be laid on the line and readers will find themselves wondering whether there's safety to be found, even on the moral high ground, in a community where leaders will sacrifice anything to get what they want.

Once again Attica Locke has woven political intrigue, power-broker corruption, and family dynamics into a legal thriller guaranteed to attract fans of courtroom drama and consumers of nuanced family stories as well. Her understanding of human nature, deeply etched characters, and skilled writing make this a read to be savored.