Guide Me Home is the third and final book in Attica Locke’s Highway 59 trilogy about Darren Mathews, a Texas Ranger who is black. We first met Darren in Bluebird, Bluebird in 2017, which went on to win Edgar and CWA Steel Dagger awards. But since then, things have changed for Darren. The sense of pride that he once felt in being a Texas Ranger is gone. His past, both personally and professionally, has been built on a foundation of lies. Guide Me Home is an exploration of how Darren responds to this shifting foundation.
It’s obvious that Locke loves her home state of Texas and she describes places in a way that appeals to the senses, making it easy to visualise the beauty of a slate-blue sky. Her writing allows you to imagine the taste and smell of the vegetables that Darren grows in his garden. Equally, she is not blind to the less pleasant realities of Texas like the oppressive heat and racism.
Darren is a flawed character with good intentions who has done a few things that he regrets. He tries to numb his self-hatred with alcohol. With the possibility of a criminal charges hanging over his head, he turns in his badge. He intends to focus on his farm and Randie, his girlfriend who is coming for a visit. Darren arrives home to discover that his estranged mother, Bell, is also at his house.
The relationship between Bell and Darren is toxic. His father died before his birth and Darren’s uncles deemed Bell an unfit parent, so they raise him themselves. He sees Bell as an untrustworthy alcoholic and is angry about the role Bell played in the incidents leading up to him quitting the force.
However, the woman waiting at the farmhouse with Randie is very different from the mother he knew. Bell has been sober for a couple of years and has a job working as a maid in a sorority house in Nacogdoches. She is worried about a student who has gone missing. Much to Darren’s surprise, Bell had felt a connection with the studious young black girl.
Initially, Darren declines his mother’s request and goes on a bender instead. When he sobers up, he decides that he could make a few calls to see if there is any truth in his mother’s concerns. Much to his surprise, he learns that one of the residents at the sorority had filed a police complaint against her housemates for bullying. Her name is Sera Fuller. Loath as he is to admit it, his mother was right to be suspicious about her disappearance.
Darren ends up conducting an unofficial investigation and reluctantly accepts assistance from Bell. In spite of what she has done in the past, you will find yourself hoping that they can build trust in one another. There are some painful and touching moments between them.
Although the primary focus of Guide Me Home is the disappearance of Sera Fuller, it is worth noting that a strong political thread runs through the novel. There are references to the Ku Klux Klan marching through Charlottesville unmasked in 2017, and the rise in hate crimes.
Sera’s father is a Trump supporter. Her family lives in Thornhill. On the surface it appears as an idyllic town but there is an underlying sense of rot. The town is the vision of a well-connected political couple who own the primary business there. Locke makes connections between corporate greed and how politics runs in the United States. Not all crimes happen in dark alleys. Some happen through legislation.
Locke does provide background information about what led to Darren’s loss of pride, so you could read this book as a standalone but will get a better understanding of the history between the various characters by reading Bluebird, Bluebird and Heaven My Home first. You will savour this clever and well-written trilogy.
Also see Eli Cranor’s recent novel, Broiler.
Viper
Print/Kindle
£7.49
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
