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Summary
Summary
WINNER OF THE HARPER LEE PRIZE FOR LEGAL FICTION
Wall Street Journal BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEY'S WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
From Attica Locke, a writer and producer of FOX's Empire, this sophisticated thriller sees lawyer Jay Porter--hero of her bestseller Black Water Rising--return to fight one last case, only to become embroiled in a dangerous game of shadowy politics and a witness to how far those in power are willing to go to win.
Fifteen years after his career-defining case against Cole Oil, Jay Porter is broke and tired. That victory might have won the environmental lawyer fame, but thanks to a string of appeals, he hasn't seen a dime. His latest case--representing Pleasantville in the wake of a chemical fire--is dragging on, shaking his confidence and raising doubts about him within this upwardly mobile black community on Houston's north side. Though Jay still believes in doing what's right, he is done fighting other people's battles. Once he has his piece of the settlement, the single father is going to devote himself to what matters most--his children.
His plans are abruptly derailed when a female campaign volunteer vanishes on the night of Houston's mayoral election, throwing an already contentious campaign into chaos. The accused is none other than the nephew and campaign manager of one of the leading candidates--a scion of a prominent Houston family headed by the formidable Sam Hathorne. Despite all the signs suggesting that his client is guilty--and his own misgivings--Jay can't refuse when a man as wealthy and connected as Sam asks him to head up the defense. Not if he wants that new life with his kids. But he has to win.
Plunging into a shadowy world of ambitious enemies and treacherous allies armed with money, lies, and secrets, Jay reluctantly takes on his first murder trial--a case that will put him and his client, and an entire political process, on trial.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Locke's gripping thriller opens on election night 1996, when a teenage girl disappears from Pleasantville, a predominantly black Houston suburb. Her body is found, raising eerie comparisons to two other unsolved murders, and attorney Jay Porter, introduced in 2009's Black Water Rising, reluctantly agrees to represent murder suspect Neal Hathorne. Neal, the grandson of Pleasantville power broker Sam Hathorne, is campaign manager for his uncle, who's facing a run-off mayoral election against the district attorney whose office is prosecuting Neal-raising the possibility that the murder charge, based on flimsy evidence, is a political stunt. Jay, a former civil rights activist struggling to keep his law practice afloat, navigates a convoluted maze of dark money, family secrets, and high-powered manipulation that threatens his and his loved ones' safety. Locke rushes her treatment of the murders and a subplot about the pregnancy of Jay's teenage daughter's best friend, but the twist-filled plot will keep readers eagerly turning the pages. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
A highly accomplished political thriller about African-American history from the author of Black Water Rising When someone comes to public prominence, newspapers commonly print photographs from their past. How unlikely it seems that the gummy toddler not much bigger than his baseball glove became president, or that the little guy lovingly stroking a pet rabbit just machine-gunned half his classmates. But wait -- is there something giveaway in the eyes? By writing, in the second decade of the 21st century, novels that deal with African-American history in the years running up to the millennium, Attica Locke employs to powerful effect the poignancy -- tragic or comic -- that comes from knowing the future waiting for someone frozen in the present tense. The characters in her 2010 debut Black Water Rising are living through the rightwing revivalism of the Reagan years but feel secure in the victories of the civil rights era; we, though, know that the racially divisive OJ Simpson trial and Clarence Thomas supreme court confirmation hearings lie ahead. In Locke's follow-up, The Cutting Season, a former Louisiana slave plantation has become a theme park staffed by costumed performers, but the narrative suggests that slavery and segregation are being re-enacted in America in other ways as well. Her third novel stops the time machine at an intriguing political junction. It's 1996 -- after the scandals of Simpson and Thomas, from which two key characters have benefited - and the race to be mayor of Houston has come down to a run-off between Axel Hathorne, an African-American former police chief, and Sandy Wolcott, a white woman who is the incumbent district attorney. In a tightening race, Hathorne's biggest asset is electoral district 259, Pleasantville, a black community that grew up in the 1950s, using activism to gain better schools and housing. White politicians were forced to take notice because the area represented the civil rights era ideal of "consolidated black voting power", a minority electorate holding the power to swing close polls. Hathorne, as the son of the power-broker who created Pleasantville, ought to be a shoo-in there, but his campaign stumbles when a young woman, last seen wearing one of the blue shirts given to his team, is found killed. The damage to the candidate increases when an aide is accused of the murder - which, as journalists soon note, creates a situation in which a DA is overseeing a death-penalty prosecution involving her mayoral rival. Jay Porter, the small-time lawyer introduced in Black Water Rising, is sufficiently suspicious of the potential for electoral corruption to take the case. A dazzling new talent in a genre usually impresses through originality. Locke, though, is an exception in this respect. She is highly accomplished at crime plotting -- satisfyingly entwining the campaign worker's death, two previous unsolved murders and a corporate pollution suit that Porter is pursuing -- but often favours conventional elements. Porter keeps getting beaten up as a warning to drop the case, and the novel's climax is a set-piece trial reminiscent of the legal procedurals of Scott Turow and John Grisham. Her freshness comes in the double historical perspective of the African-American past -- the details of Pleasantville's creation and evolution are compelling -- and the political future. The courtroom scenes turn on an attempt to settle an election in the courts, which inevitably evokes what will happen in Florida in 2000 between Gore and Bush. Rumours that "George W" is planning a presidential bid are dotted through the plot and some of the politicking by a ruthless "election consultant" is a rehearsal of later actual tactics by the Bush 2000 team. The Enron scandal is also glimpsed in embryo. Most white crime novelists only tell us when someone is black. Locke operates an equality policy in which ethnicity is always specified, noting the "afro" of a witness, but also a Texan oil man's shock at a "white hand" serving his drink at a club, while the trial judge is a "white woman ... with hair dyed the colour of coffee". Racially indicative music -- a legendary blues LP -- also proves crucial. There are liberals who would say that the novel's pessimism about the future direction of American politics is contradicted by the fact that George W Bush was followed by Barack Obama. But Jay Porter would tell us not to be so naive. Pleasantville depicts the beginnings of the present implacable ideological standoff in US politics, in short-hand "the culture wars", in which an African-American could become president, but around half the population and a large part of the political establishment were revulsed by the result. In her first three novels, Locke has explored cultural history since the days of slavery. A future book will surely deal with race in the Obama and post-Obama era. That could be her best story yet -- which, on the evidence of those she has already written, is saying something. * Mark Lawson's The Deaths is published by Picador. To order Pleasantville for [pound]11.99 (RRP [pound]14.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over [pound]10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of [pound]1.99. - Mark Lawson.
Kirkus Review
Race, politics and petty grievances muddy the quest for justice when a young election volunteer is kidnapped and murdered.On election night 1996, in the primarily African-American area of Pleasantville, in the north of Houston, a young woman named Alicia Nowell is chased by a mystery figure. That same night, the home of attorney Jay Porter (Black Water Rising, 2009) is broken into. The police are blas. After they leave, a young intruder comes out of hiding. Jay brandishes his gun but allows the kid to get away. In the absence of a clear election winner, a runoff pits Jay's candidate, former police chief Axel Hathorne, against Sandy Wolcott, a "political upstart."Jay attends a community meeting about the missing girl, who's the third one in recent memory, though the police haven't aggressively investigated the earlier two. He's particularly worried because he's raising his teenage daughter, Ellie, as a single parent. Everyone is surprised when Axel's nephew Neal is arrested. Jay agrees to represent him, and his investigator, Lonnie, learns that the police are monitoring hotheaded Alonzo Hollis as a person of interest. As Jay begins to track Hollis, the wheels of justice turn, and Alicia's body is found. Former Houston mayor Cynthia Maddox, who may have higher ambitions, arrives with Secret Service protection to urge Jay to drop the case. Instead of complying, he prepares for the trial, which unfolds with methodical precision, the final picture taking shape piece by piece. The killer's identity is a genuine surprise. A thriller wrapped in an involving story of community and family dynamics. Locke serves up a panorama of nuanced characters and writes with intelligence and depth. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This sequel to Black Water Rising (2009), set 15 years later, finds lawyer Jay Porter grieving the death of his wife and struggling to care for his 14-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. His environmental-law practice has dwindled to one case, which he hopes to settle out of court, and he is awaiting payment on a huge case he won against Cole Oil, which is dragging out the appeals process. Jay is tired and distracted and just trying to get by. Then the nephew of a black mayoral candidate is arrested for the murder of a campaign volunteer, and Jay is pulled right back into the thick of the action when he impulsively agrees to be the defense attorney. The storied black family now embroiled in controversy have long been respected members of the middle-class black community. But once Jay digs into the case, he discovers a wealth of startling information about the corruption of campaigns, the waning influence of longtime activists, and the behind-the-scenes manipulation of monied Ivy Leaguers. Locke, a sharp and gifted writer, delivers a complex, suspenseful legal thriller that offers a sophisticated appraisal of our deeply flawed political process, one that is likely to resound with readers.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2015 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Jay Porter is winding down his law career-it's time, he thinks; his wife has died, progress on one of his last big cases seems to have slowed to a crawl via court appeals, and he's lost the fire to ever set foot in a courtroom again. But when the scion of one of -Pleasantville's founding families is charged with murder after a teenage campaign worker disappears on election night, Jay can't quite help himself. With only the slightest push from Pleasantville's elite, he is suddenly defending a criminal case that intersects election law, too. Jay's Hail Mary in the case unearths more than he, or any of Pleasantville's residents, had bargained for. Locke's third book and the second featuring the deeply sympathetic Jay Porter (Black River Rising) is an enthralling multilayered thriller that captures the zeitgeist of a shifting sociopolitical landscape in a historically black suburban community in Texas in the mid-1990s. Locke makes every scene count with a complex plot that unfolds surprises at every turn and packs a satisfying conclusion. VERDICT Highly recommended for fans of fast-paced mysteries with strong geographic angles and appealing underdogs. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]-Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.