HEAVEN, MY HOME Highway 59, Book 2

JD Jackson needs the range of a grand piano to do justice to Attica Locke's East Texas, and his skills and appealing baritone have it covered. Locke's protagonist, Darren Matthews, is an African-American Texas Ranger with a rocky marriage, a drinking problem, and a penchant for doing bad things for good reasons. In his morally messy world, 9-year-old Levi King has disappeared among the haunted islands of Lake Caddo. This would tug Matthews's heartstrings harder if the child were not the race-baiting scion of Aryan Brotherhood royalty. Locke is protecting no one here, and Jackson makes these flawed, believable characters a pleasure to love or hate. Add some antebellum fantasy tourist trap fraudsters, and you have a distinctly uncozy puzzle for our time, beautifully performed. B.G. 2019 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2019]