HEAVEN, MY HOME

Winner of the CWA Steel Dagger Award this is a beautifully wrought mystery which sees Texas Ranger Darren Mathews investigating a missing white boy's case amidst racial tensions while battling his own personal demons and his mother's blackmail. Mick Herron calls this a 'powerful, angry, important book.' Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner. Instead he found himself alone, adrift on the vastness of Caddo Lake. A sudden noise, and all goes dark. Ranger Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness. His career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother who has never had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom and she's not above a little blackmail to press her advantage. An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town. With Texas already suffering a new wave of racial violence in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, a black man is a suspect in the possible murder of a missing white boy, the son of an Aryan Brotherhood captain. In deep country where the rule of law only goes so far, Darren has to battle centuries-old prejudices as he races to save not only Levi King, but himself. The book reflects unflinching the ugly side of contemporary America and is written by one of America's finest novelists. 294 page paperback.