Thank you Mulholland Books, #partner for the advanced e-copy of Guide Me Home in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Published: September 3, 2024
Summary:
In the final novel in the “timely and evocative” (NPR) Highway 59 trilogy, from Edgar Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Attica Locke, Darren Matthews is pulled out of an early retirement to investigate the disappearance of a Black college student from an all-white sorority and soon finds nothing is as it seems.
Texas Ranger Darren Mathews isn’t sure he’s been a good cop, but believes he’s got a shot at being a good man—if he manages to dodge the potential indictment hanging over his head and if he, from here on out, pledges allegiance to the truth. It’s a virtue the country appears to have wholly lost its grip on, but one Darren sees as his salvation. He is in the midst of remaking his life with the woman he loves, hoping for the peace of country living at his beloved farmhouse, when he is visited by someone who couldn’t hold the truth on her tongue if it was dipped in sugar, a woman who’s always been bent of tearing his life apart. His mother. Armed with a tall tale about a missing Black college student, Sera (whose white sorority sisters insist she isn’t missing at all). Darren must decide if his can trust his mother is telling the truth—and what her ulterior motive may be, and what if that motive has to do with a grand jury deciding his fate.
Darren gets his hooks into the investigation, along the way discovering things about Sera’s family and her hometown that are odd at best, vaguely sinister at worst. Hamstrung by local law enforcement and the Texas Rangers who likewise doubt the account of a missing girl, if Darren wants answers, he’ll need help from the person whom he swore to never trust again—his mother.
In this emotionally stirring conclusion to the singular Highway 59 series, set three years after the events of Heaven, My Home, Darren reckons with his life’s purpose as he’s forced to choose between his own peace and the higher call to do good.
My thoughts:
This is the 3rd book in Attica Locke’s Highway 59 series, and I picked it up because Attica Locke will be at a book festival I’ll be attending this week. I had read the 1st book in the series, Bluebird Bluebird a while back and then immediately got the next two books but of course left them sitting on my shelf unread, so this was the perfect excuse to finally catch up on the series, plus there is now a 4th book coming out in the series later this year!
While I knew going into this one that there will be another book coming in this series, it does work as a good finish for the three books, so now I’m quite curious as to what comes next. That being said…I do feel really strongly that these books work best being read as a whole. The character development really builds from the first book to this one, and the threads that start in that first book continue to carry over.
This is not an easy book to read, as the author takes on some tough topics, but I feel she handles it well. Her characters have such depth that you can’t help but become attached to them. They are all deeply flawed and I think that is what makes them all the more appealing. In this installment, it is Darren’s mother that brings him a case and while that mystery was quite gripping, it really was the other plotline that had my full attention. We see Darren finally confronting the consequences of his past actions and his past. I loved getting to know more about his parents and why he had such a fractured relationship with some of his family members.
This book really delves into memory and how sometimes the stories we tell ourselves can change the perception of the truth. It was such a hard-hitting book on so many levels, and I could not have loved it more. I’m really excited that I have the chance to hear the author speak about this series and her plans for it moving forward. I know these are books that I will reread at some point…they are too good not to revisit!
Books in this series:
- Bluebird, Bluebird
- Heaven, My Home
- Guide Me Home
- ???
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