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* THE BLISTERING FINAL INSTALMENT OF THE AWARD-WINNING HIGHWAY 59 SERIES *

‘One of America’s finest crime novelists’ DAILY MAIL
‘One of crime fiction’s most exciting writers’ MICK HERRON
‘Attica Locke has both mastered the thriller and exceeded it’ ANN PATCHETT

Texas Ranger Darren Mathews has handed in his badge. A choice made three years before, which served justice if not the law, means that he may now stand trial. And his mother – an intermittent and destructive force in his life – is the cause of his fall from grace.

And yet it is his mother’s reappearance that may also be his salvation. A black girl at an all-white sorority at a nearby college is missing, her belongings tossed in a dumpster. Her sorority sisters, the college police, even the girl’s own family, deny that she has disappeared, but Sera Fuller is nowhere to be found. A bloodstained shirt discovered in a woodland clearing may be the last trace of her. And Darren’s mother wants her son to work the case.

Disillusioned by an America forever changed by the presidency of Donald Trump, Darren reluctantly agrees. Yet as he sets out to find a girl whose family don’t want her found, it is his own family’s history that may be brought painfully into the light. And a reckoning with his past may finally show Darren the future he can build.

Publisher Review

Beautiful… I stand in awe of Attica’s prose – surely one of the finest wordsmiths currently working in literary crime — Leonora Nattrass, author of BLUE WATER A fantastic piece of work. I love a damaged hero and that’s exactly what we get with Darren Matthews, a real old-time cowboy. All the characters are vivid and heartfelt, the plot is compelling, and the on point socio-political commentary adds an extra resonance that elevates this novel onto a rarified plane — Simon Van der Velde, author of THE SILENT BROTHER The triumphant finale to Locke’s Highway 59 trilogy… A searing portrait of political and racial tensions in Trump’s America * Bookseller * A dystopia of racism, business manipulation and prejudice soon come to the fore in a novel that has much on personal relations, notably between Darren and his mother, former wife, and current partner. Well-written and interesting, this is a good book * Critic * Locke resolves the loose ends of her award-winning trilogy of novels set along East Texas’ Highway 59 in ways at once gratifying and unsettling… We’ve missed Attica Locke’s deft and wise way with the crime novel * Kirkus * PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR

‘Locke is building a compelling body of work. In this age of enduring and renewed racial tensions, we need her voice more than ever * Guardian * A superb thriller… Locke’s message of injustice is the more convincing for being conveyed with restraint * Times * An expertly plotted triple whodunit * Sunday Times * One of America’s finest crime novelists … A beautifully wrought mystery * Daily Mail * This is the best kind of thriller: as literate and thoughtful as it is fast-moving. Attica Locke has bags of style, and sings the blues on every page — Mick Herron, author of SLOW HORSES