Title: Guide Me Home

Author: Attica Locke

Genre: Crime/Thriller

Publisher: Viper

Publication Date: 19th September 2024

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Summary:

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.

Review:

The Highway 59 series is one of my favourites so I was thrilled to jump back into the world of Texas Ranger Darren Mathews as he finds himself and America itself in an intense reckoning of sorts, where everything feels like it’s teetering on a dangerous precipice. The narrative focuses on both the case of a missing college student, a black girl in an all-white sorority, who no one seems willing to admit is actually missing, and Darren’s incredibly fractious relationship with his estranged mother, who has reappeared in his life just as his career and possibly even his freedom are hanging in the balance. It is this tense and difficult relationship which has been a running theme throughout the entire series and is part of what makes Guide Me Home so utterly compelling. 

Attica Locke’s ability to make her books intensely gripping character-driven stories but also an indictment of and reflection on the political and social landscape of America and indeed the world is incredible. She is a phenomenal writer and this is an excellent crime series. If you have read the previous two books then I guarantee Guide Me Home will not disappoint and if you haven’t then please do add the whole series to your TBR. Evocative, incendiary and propulsive – I highly recommend. 

★★★★★

Huge thanks to Viper Books for the invitation to join the blog tour and for the copy of the book. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.

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