Black Water Rising

In this adroit debut thriller, Attica Locke delivers the goods with an understated and assured confidence. The cadence, as well as the story, is brisk and balanced. She avoids the pitfalls of many debut authors, i.e. the prose is not self-conscious or cloying, and the story develops with a natural ease. Her sentences are a joy to read, as they are poised, with a sense of the poetic, and well scrubbed. This is a novel with political overtones and racial conflicts; however, Locke executes her narrative without pounding in the polemics or preaching to the choir. In this restrained and mostly character driven story, the corporate controversies develop with a refined intelligence, building with a controlled and subdued temperance. Moreover, Locke paints a keen portrait of Houston's Third Ward of 1981, a place where political activism in the African American community has declined since its days of Carl Hampton and the Black Panther activism of the 70's, as many black business owners and homeowners have moved to the suburbs. Jay Porter is a young, thirtyish lawyer with a very pregnant wife, Bernie, living in the Third Ward and trying to pave a career. He has a tenebrous past that is revealed gradually within the arc of the story. At the beginning, we know he feels clouded and frustrated with how his career and life is unfolding, and there is a palpable tension between Jay and his wife. He tries, on her birthday, to surprise her with a boat ride on Buffalo Bayou in Houston. What stars off as a romantic quest turns into an uninvited adventure, as Jay saves a drowning woman and gets pulled into a quagmire of murder and dirty politics. Things get murkier as Bernie's father, a respected Reverend, beseeches Jay to get involved with the looming strike of the longshoreman dock workers. Although Jay was an activist for black power and equality in his college days, he does not want to get involved with this racially divided conflict. "This is not my fight," he murmurs over and over to himself. "This has nothing to do with me." The thorny history of the Third and Fifth Wards, as well as Houston's power boom of the 70's and early 80's, informs Locke's superb story of human politics. She weaves Jay's past into the present with a lyrical control and economy of words, creating page-turning tension for the reader. This isn't about dead bodies piling up or gratuitous shoot-outs with larger-than-life characters. The characters in Locke's story are authentic, conflicted, and wholly believable. Jay's fight to provide for and protect his family and to forge a meaningful life are the gripping forces of this novel. Locke skillfully blends the Houston climate and geography into the mood of the characters and the action of the story. The tone is pitch-perfect and the events progress with a measured intensity. Locke's gift for character and narrative kept me fastened to the novel from the arresting opening pages to its credible and transitional end. I eagerl

I really loved this book. From the first chapter, the BLACK WATER RISING became all I could think about. The writing is gorgeous-- descriptions were just beautiful. The plot itself was juicy and complicated. I loved the historical digressions. And the dialogue! I am so eager to see what Attica Locke does next

Black Water Rising tells the story of Jay Porter, a young, black lawyer struggling to make ends meet in 1981 Houston, Texas. To celebrate his pregnant wife's birthday, Jay hires a cut-rate boat for a moonlight cruise. When they hear a woman screaming, then shots, and finally splashing, Jay doesn't want to get involved, but his wife Bernie shames him into rescuing the woman from the bayou. A former activist in the Black Power movement who narrowly escaped jail time, Jay is leery of the white woman who refuses to talk to them. After dropping her off outside the police station, Jay and Bernie assume their involvement is done. But Jay can't leave it alone, especially after a man is found shot and the woman is arrested for the murder. Jay knows the man was threatening the woman, and tries to convince her to tell the truth, revealing that he was a witness. Soon Jay is bribed with $25,000 to keep his mouth shut by a very scary guy who follows him to make sure that he does. Meanwhile, Jay is defending a young black man who was beaten after a meeting of the longshoremen who are threatening to strike, and some powerful Texan oil men and the mayor would like Jay to disappear. This literary thriller skillfully weaves powerful themes of race relations and the business practices of oil corporations with an engaging murder investigation. [...]

It's 1981. Much of the country has embraced the Civil Rights Movement, but Texas has a slightly different attitude about it. Jay Porter spent a lot of his college days as an activist, along with the woman who is now the mayor of Houston. Those days of marches and rallies are far behind him, but the memories stick hard. He studied and went on to become an attorney before he realized that a black man in this city couldn't make a good living practicing law. Now he and his wife, with their first baby on the way, are just squeaking by. "He, quite frankly, can't afford his principles. He needs a win, a jackpot." But first he needs a nice gift for his wife's birthday. He uses up a favor so that he and Bernie can spend the evening floating serenely on the bayou. The boat is a mess, the skipper is a seedy old guy, the weather is muggy, and Jay is thinking that it's not going all that well. He soon finds out that he should have been happy with things as they were. Horrific screams pierce the night, followed by shots and the sound of someone crashing through the bushes. Like it or not, Jay and Bernie are embroiled in a nasty piece of business that he must find a way out of. Unfortunately, Jay has serious hesitations about going to the police. His past has a few worrisome blemishes. Maybe if he ignores it, it will just go away. But staying silent only puts him in deeper danger. What Jay really doesn't need is distractions from his meager workload. With a child due any minute, every dollar counts. But even if Jay wanted to let it go, what was set in motion that night on the river won't let go of him. He calls in more favors and starts his own investigation, for by now the police are no longer an option. Too much has happened for him to explain what took him so long to come forward. Besides, are the people who are supposed to be helping him really on his side? And can he trust the cops? As Jay fights feverishly to save his life --- and a few others --- a fight of another kind is heating up in Houston. The local longshoremen are threatening to strike, a move that will bring not only Texas to its knees, but quite possibly the entire nation. Somehow, this has become Jay's responsibility. He's not sure how, but his father-in-law asked him to help out and he has a hard time saying no to the reverend. If the strike goes forward, it promises to get ugly. In fact, there have already been some incidents in advance of a walk-out. Jay just wants peace back in his life. In a desperate attempt to overcome his fears, Jay dredges up the strength and the will to confront his tormentors, surprising himself and those who would see him dead. Attica Locke intertwines the history of the fight for equal rights with the mystery surrounding the night of Bernie's birthday. Rich in local details and teeming with action, BLACK WATER RISING is sure to please thriller fans. --- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

In 1981 Houston, black attorney Jay Porter has a lot of information on a recent homicide, but has several reasons not to share his knowledge with the cops. Besides not trusting the police, an offshoot of growing up in the city's slums, Porter knows if he speaks up he goes under the spotlight, and he has a lot to hide. Back when he was nineteen in 1970 he was on trial for inciting a riot and for conspiracy to commit murder of a federal agent; he knows he was fortunate that there was a juror who lived near his future father-in-law's church. He didn't even know Bernie who is now his wife or her dad Reverend Boykins at that time, but they and his flock were there for him. He wants his felonious history to remain concealed and a tryst with Mayor Cynthia Maddox to stay secret as he is beginning to make it in the middle class and wants the best for his wife and their new child. On the other hand, Porter also realizes by his silence, an innocent man is being condemned. Although his conscience bothers him, he weighs being the Good Samaritan against the impact on his family and his career. This is a terrific historical legal thriller that brings to life Houston in 1981 as the civil rights movement remains strong but not quite as effective as it had been. Jay is a fabulous lead character as he decides to let the innocent dupe take the fall rather than challenge the city's powerful, but each time he shaves his conscience bothers him. Although too many subplots that help anchor time and place take away from the main theme, sub-genre fans will enjoy this strong character driven tale as Jay has nothing to lose materially with silence, but everything to lose with speaking out. Harriet Klausner