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Black Water Rising CD

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In her debut novel, Black Water Rising, Attica Locke gives us a literary thriller that grabs us from the opening page to the last page. It is Houston, Texas 1981 and Jay Porter, a struggling lawyer without two pennies to rub together, is about to take his pregnant wife on a boat ride on the bayou as a birthday celebration. As if they both have foresight of what is to come, each is hesitant for their own reasons on whether they should take this trip. Jay wonders if this will meet his wife's expectations. Bernie, his wife, wonders if the boat will survive the trip but she does not want her husband to be disappointed. But those thoughts are thrown aside as Jay pulls a drowning woman out of the water. He knows this is the right thing to do, but his inner voice and past tells him, he should not have gotten involved with a white woman running away from the black side of town. After leaving the woman on the police station steps, Jay and Bernie go home. But Jay cannot leave well enough alone, and wants to know more about this woman and as each clue he uncovers brings danger to him and his family, Jay wonders if he can turn away before he is drawn back into his past which he was barely able to survive.

This book provides us with a wonderful treat as besides the mystery story to be solved, there is the story of how Jay became the person that he is. It is a story about young people taking charge to bring about social change in the 1970s and how the establishment used their power to make sure that this change did not happen. This storyline is blended seamlessly with the mystery story and shows us that while things change the more things remain the same. The author did an excellent job of presenting time and location. The reader is transported to Houston and along with the heat and humidity will feel Houston's growing pains as she comes into her own as an oil power town. There are a variety of characters, some you will love and some you will dislike. However, I would like to have learned more about Bernie, as at times I did not understand her behavior, especially when she was in danger.

I enjoyed this book and while the action in the book is centered in the 1970s and 1980s, it is very current with our times as we examine the connection between government, business and energy and the struggle between greed and doing what is right. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy thrillers, mysteries and storylines with contemporary themes.

Reviewed by Beverly

APOOO BookClub

March 18, 2009

Although I didn't find the "literary thriller" that I expected based on the glowing reports by paid critics and several reviewers here, `Black Water Rising' is a good, no, very good political drama. The story is rich in the history of the turbulent 70s through the booming 80s in Houston. And, Locke both draws a visual map of the city and develops a complex protagonist in Jay Porter. Alas, after the vividly portrayed beginning with a birthday celebration that is interrupted by Jay Porter's saving a stranger in distress, the story drags until nearly the middle of the book. Then, as this reader was set to labor through a mediocre book, the momentum quickly picks up with a realistic conversation between Jay and Stokely Carmichael that captures the cadence and syntax of the well-known social activist. The best written scene follows with an accurate picture of a campus protest rally that turns into a melee. At this point, Locke starts to show her screenwriting chops by invigorating the dialogue and action. When Ainsley, the character that takes his case all the way to Washington, talks about the mine's closing and developers buying up the land, it's like reading recent headlines about the financial schemes that brought our economy to the edge. An especial strength of the writing is how Locke fixes the time and place with details of the period, e.g., public conduct (indoors, the union men tucked their work caps under their arms), technology (the rotary phone) and music (by Otis Redding, the Dells, et al.). In recovering the pace that she started in the beginning, the writer finally delivers the promised suspense. By the end of the story, the multiple plotlines have been tied together. However, too much is left unresolved and the drama comes to an abrupt end.

In 1981 Houston, black attorney Jay Porter has a lot of information on a recent homicide, but has several reasons not to share his knowledge with the cops. Besides not trusting the police, an offshoot of growing up in the city's slums, Porter knows if he speaks up he goes under the spotlight, and he has a lot to hide. Back when he was nineteen in 1970 he was on trial for inciting a riot and for conspiracy to commit murder of a federal agent; he knows he was fortunate that there was a juror who lived near his future father-in-law's church. He didn't even know Bernie who is now his wife or her dad Reverend Boykins at that time, but they and his flock were there for him. He wants his felonious history to remain concealed and a tryst with Mayor Cynthia Maddox to stay secret as he is beginning to make it in the middle class and wants the best for his wife and their new child.

On the other hand, Porter also realizes by his silence, an innocent man is being condemned. Although his conscience bothers him, he weighs being the Good Samaritan against the impact on his family and his career.

This is a terrific historical legal thriller that brings to life Houston in 1981 as the civil rights movement remains strong but not quite as effective as it had been. Jay is a fabulous lead character as he decides to let the innocent dupe take the fall rather than challenge the city's powerful, but each time he shaves his conscience bothers him. Although too many subplots that help anchor time and place take away from the main theme, sub-genre fans will enjoy this strong character driven tale as Jay has nothing to lose materially with silence, but everything to lose with speaking out.

Harriet Klausner

Jay Porter is struggling. He lives in a cramped little apartment with his pregnant wife, a woman he has known since she was thirteen years old, and he wonders if they can ever afford a better home. Porter, a player during the Black Power movement of the 1960s, is now a lawyer with a cheap, strip mall office and an incompetent secretary he can just afford. His clients are walk-ins and referrals who can barely afford to pay him at all, much less an amount that would offer Porter a decent profit for his work. So, when one of those clients arranges a free boat ride down Houston's Buffalo Bayou in lieu of a cash payment, Porter accepts the deal and decides to celebrate his wife's birthday on the little boat.

As the boat makes its way through the heart of downtown Houston in near total darkness, the Porters and the boat's captain are startled by a woman's desperate screams for help. It is impossible to see the woman or her attacker from the boat but, as they are paused to listen, the three soon hear the sounds of someone rolling down the bayou's steep bank and splashing into the water. Porter manages to get the barely breathing woman into the boat but, because he fears getting involved in the problems of this white woman, he brings her to the police station's front door and slips away before anyone can see him or get his name.

It is only when he sees the story in the newspaper that Porter learns that the woman he rescued may not have been a victim at all - she might, instead, be a murderer. Still reluctant to get involved, Porter only learns how much trouble he is in when a stranger offers to pay him for his silence about what he saw and heard the night of the murder. The man leaves Porter with two choices: take the money and remain silent or be shut up for good.

Attica Locke has here the makings of an intriguing story about a former Black Power radical trying to make his way through the still tense racial attitudes of 1981 Houston, Texas. She does, in fact, do a remarkable job of capturing the mood and atmosphere of 1980s Houston, a period during which the city was facing almost uncontrollable growth in both population and serious crime. It was a time when whole neighborhoods were off limits after dark to whites and blacks alike, high crime black neighborhoods whites did not dare enter and high income white neighborhoods where blacks drew the immediate attention of Houston cops.

Locke, though, makes the mistake of creating two additional subplots that do little more than complicate her story. First, she gets Jay Porter involved with a young man who has been beaten by union thugs who want to head off an economically crippling strike by dockworkers at the Houston port facilities. Next, she exposes Porter to a plot by Big Oil to manipulate the price of gasoline at the pump, a plan about which only one old white man and Porter seem to care. These subplots overwhelm the more interesting, and plausible, mystery of the woman in the bayou and eventually begin to seem almost cartoonish - especially in the way that Big Oil is represented in the most stereotypical way possible. Few of the associated characters seem real and, as a result, even Porter and his wife become less sympathetic characters.

And that is a shame because the first chapter of "Black Water Rising" is one of the best lead chapters I have read in a while. This could, and should, have been a very different book.

The author, having created an intriguing and interesting story, completely blows it by making a number of silly mistakes. She literally refers to a weapon as both a shotgun and a rifle in the same sentence. The character with the shotgun/rifle, an eight-month pregnant woman, uses the weapon to blow a man's hand off. Her husband, the protagonist, then takes the gun, which we can now assume is a shotgun, puts a "bullet" in it and shoots the man a second time in the right shoulder at close range. The two then put the man in their car, drop him off at a local hospital, and then return home, clean up the mess and go to bed. No one heard the gunshots (a forty-five caliber pistol was also fired), and the two characters, having cleaned up the mess, go on with their lives. What's wrong with this picture? Oh, just about everything.

To make it even worse, the man whose hand was blown off and who had his shoulder blown apart appears a short time later trying to kill the protagonist with a gun he is shooting with his left hand.

These sorts of mistakes are just careless and thoughtless. I don't understand the hype laid on this novel at all.

Another reviewer pointed out that in one scene in the book a shotgun is referred to as 'a shotgun' and 'a rifle' in the same passage. But that's not the worst boo-boo in the book:

In a scene recounting a speech by Stokely Carmichael, famed Civil Rights Activist and the man who coined the phrase 'black power,' the author describes Stokely as looking extremely cool. She says he looks like the bass player in Booker T. And The M.G's. That's ridiculous. The bassist in that band is a guy named Donald 'Duck' Dunn. Not only is Duck Dunn white, during the period in which the story is set he was also kinda pudgy. The comparison might be flattering to Duck but I'm not sure Stokely would have appreciated it.

That's the kind of 'little' thing that can pull a reader out of a story and make him doubt every word he reads after that.

It's 1981. Much of the country has embraced the Civil Rights Movement, but Texas has a slightly different attitude about it. Jay Porter spent a lot of his college days as an activist, along with the woman who is now the mayor of Houston. Those days of marches and rallies are far behind him, but the memories stick hard. He studied and went on to become an attorney before he realized that a black man in this city couldn't make a good living practicing law. Now he and his wife, with their first baby on the way, are just squeaking by. "He, quite frankly, can't afford his principles. He needs a win, a jackpot."

But first he needs a nice gift for his wife's birthday. He uses up a favor so that he and Bernie can spend the evening floating serenely on the bayou. The boat is a mess, the skipper is a seedy old guy, the weather is muggy, and Jay is thinking that it's not going all that well. He soon finds out that he should have been happy with things as they were. Horrific screams pierce the night, followed by shots and the sound of someone crashing through the bushes. Like it or not, Jay and Bernie are embroiled in a nasty piece of business that he must find a way out of. Unfortunately, Jay has serious hesitations about going to the police. His past has a few worrisome blemishes. Maybe if he ignores it, it will just go away. But staying silent only puts him in deeper danger.

What Jay really doesn't need is distractions from his meager workload. With a child due any minute, every dollar counts. But even if Jay wanted to let it go, what was set in motion that night on the river won't let go of him. He calls in more favors and starts his own investigation, for by now the police are no longer an option. Too much has happened for him to explain what took him so long to come forward. Besides, are the people who are supposed to be helping him really on his side? And can he trust the cops?

As Jay fights feverishly to save his life --- and a few others --- a fight of another kind is heating up in Houston. The local longshoremen are threatening to strike, a move that will bring not only Texas to its knees, but quite possibly the entire nation. Somehow, this has become Jay's responsibility. He's not sure how, but his father-in-law asked him to help out and he has a hard time saying no to the reverend. If the strike goes forward, it promises to get ugly. In fact, there have already been some incidents in advance of a walk-out. Jay just wants peace back in his life.

In a desperate attempt to overcome his fears, Jay dredges up the strength and the will to confront his tormentors, surprising himself and those who would see him dead.

Attica Locke intertwines the history of the fight for equal rights with the mystery surrounding the night of Bernie's birthday. Rich in local details and teeming with action, BLACK WATER RISING is sure to please thriller fans.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

The central character is Jay Porter - father to be and financially challanged criminal lawyer. He arranges an evening boat trip on the local bayou for his wife's birthday and the central plot of the book unfolds, as he rescues a woman from the water.

Jay has a history, the baggage of which influences his actions and suspicions. Whilset at college in the 60's he was involved in the political activity around the black power movement. His experiences are gradually revealed as the book goes on, without giving too much away they revolve around the federal governments attempts to infultrate and disband the organisations - this makes him deeply suspicious of any involvement with the authorities.

I found this book atmospheric and the political parts of the book were well explained as events from the past were brought to life through Jay's eyes. The political background is not one that I was familiar with, and Attica Locke does a good job of effectively portraying the history, atmosphere and racial tensions in the 60's 70's and 80's. In terms of the plot I found the twists a bit too predictable. Whilst the events were believeable the baddies seemed to punch below their weight. For someone with such a cautious approach, Jay's actions were not always in tune with his charachter. He draws conclusions from the evidence he has, which often don't seem to add up. There are a few supplots going on, they serve to reinforce the mood and attitude of the times and introduce some of the key characters in different situations - however sometimes it gets a bit confusing as to where the book is going and sometimes the subplots take over the main story. With the exception of Jay the other characters are a bit 'empty' and lacking in detail

So in conclusion, its an OK read, the atmosphere and tensions are well built but the central story didn't really flow.

This wasn't a perfect thriller, but it was a really good one. Set in Houston, TX in the '80's, Locke tells the story of Jay Porter, a lawyer who witnesses something bad out on the bayou, but is disinclined to trust the cops.

Jay Porter is a wonderful character - a former civil rights activist, burned by a snitch in his group and put on trial, but acquitted. He has come through this experience with a law degree, a wife, a baby on the way, and a not-so-thriving law practice in a strip mall. His life hasn't exactly turned out the way he planned. Riding along with Jay as he sorts through the events he is tangled up in accidentally you can't help but root for him, despite all his damage, despite all his paranoia, despite his imperfections.

Locke does a great job of bringing the reader into the Houston of the '80's where it's all about oil, corruption, and growth - growth so fast that the city can't keep up with basic services and toney gated communities must hire their own garbagemen to avoid drowning in their refuse. Locke grew up in Houston and obviously knows the city well. I loved her ability to move through all the various niches - from ghetto to honky tonk to City Hall.

Locke is a screenwriter and it shows. The pacing in the book is very cinematic and she really knows how to grab you and keep you reading. Another reviewer compared her to Dennis Lehane and I guess she's working in similar territory if Dennis Lehane was African American and from Houston. The final third of the book gets a little clunky and a little too convoluted as if she threw too many balls in the air at once and doesn't quite know how to make it all work, but this was fresh and entertaining and I hope she writes another one.

Jay Porter, a small time lawyer in big oil town Houston, Texas in 1981, has a past about which he has grown ambivalent. As a black lawyer, Jay's college days as an eristic civil rights activist are well behind him, and he concentrates on building his meager law practice, taking on call girl cases and the like, anything to pay the bills and provide for him and his pregnant wife. His life turns topsy-turvy, when against his own instincts, his wife coaxes him to check out the screams of a woman on the bayou as he and his wife celebrate her birthday on a boat ride. He rescues the woman and later drops her off a police station, thinking no more of it.

He finds out through the newspaper that the same woman he rescued has been charged with murder at the same place where he resuced her. The woman has a past that is connected to big oil. Jay finds himself embroiled in a mess as thick as, well, black water. The author takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride that goes high and higher. Jay's life is threatened again and again as he gets closer to understanding the woman's connection to big oil. But his attitude meliorates and he finds himself tied again to fighting for a social cause, this time maybe exposing big oil for polluting the land, ruining the lives of many folks.

While I am all for suspending disbelief to get absorbed in a story, it was a bit much to think that the small time lawyer could take on big oil (therefore big money) with little help and survive, not just life, but maintain his law license. There were several times I thought that all big oil had to do was harm his wife and even blow up his house or car, while not leaving a trace.

I did not find the subplot involving equal pay and equal opportunity advancement, a cause dear to black union workers, to be distracting, as did some readers. I think the union issue helped Jay see that as his family fought for certain union rights, it helped him regain his spirit to fight for a social cause.

Kudos to Attica Locke for writing a terrific debut novel.