by Attica Locke
First published 2020
Nine-year-old Levi King takes his grandfather's boat across Caddo Lake one winter evening, racing home to Hopetown before his mother notices he's gone. He never makes it back. Days pass without answers from local police. Levi's father Bill King sits in prison for murdering a Black man and belongs to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Desperate, he writes directly to the Governor demanding better investigators. The state sends Darren Mathews, a Black Texas Ranger fresh from solving a high-profile case. In Hopetown, Mathews faces a town where his badge offers little protection from racial hatred. His investigation pulls him into the community's buried history, where Native Americans, freed slaves, and white residents maintain an uneasy coexistence. The white minority still controls power and feels emboldened by the current political climate. Mathews must navigate dangerous territory both literal and social as he searches for the missing boy in a place where justice remains selective.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, african-american-historical-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, racial-tensions
Setting: Caddo Lake, Hopetown
Period: Contemporary
336 pages · Paperback · Bompiani
Content warnings: racism, violence