Ayo Onatade is an avid reader of crime and mystery fiction. She has been writing reviews, interviews and articles on the subject for the last 12 years; with an eclectic taste from historical to hardboiled, short stories and noir films
Heaven My Home is the return of Ranger Darren Matthews from last year’s MWA Edgar and CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Awarded Bluebird Bluebird.
Darren Matthews is investigating the disappearance of a young boy named Levi; the son of a white supremacist. Additionally the US Ranger is attempting to rebuild his marriage, as well as restoring his professional reputation. His career has taken a savage beating, resulting in him being placed behind a desk. Adding to his woes, Matthews’ overbearing mother starts to use emotional blackmail to get him to adjust to her outlook and toward her concerns.
Matthews’ investigation on the missing Levi, indicates linkages to a previous case. Due to the volatility of the current political climate, Matthews has to take additional care, as old prejudices have come from beneath the shadows, and are now in the light.
This follow-up to Bluebird Bluebird is set in the era of Donald Trump, and his view of America. Not unlike the emotion of hatred toward others who are different; the tendrils of Aryan Brotherhood of Texas have crossed the state-lines and into the swamps of Louisiana.
The problem that Darren Matthews has to confront is that suspicions relating to the missing white-boy point to the property of the freedmen’s community; land of the descendants of former slaves. It is land that is disputed by the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and who suspect that the boy has been murdered by that community.
Heaven My Home is a complex and exciting story skilfully inter-cut like a Venn-diagram, with the themes of ethics, race and family to shape a narrative that is as thought-provoking, as it is a book that reflects today’s America. At its core, Locke examines a rural Texas community unable to shed the racism of its past, peopled by deeply flawed characters from opposing viewpoints, until you see the shimmer of violence, ready to erupt from the rocks that held it away from sight - until red-baseball caps appeared, with their promise of making America great again.
Evocative, detailed, and politically charged - there’s little doubt that it will appear like its precursor as a narrative destined for accolade.
