Highway 59 Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Bluebird, Bluebird | 2017 | Buy |
| Heaven, My Home | 2019 | Buy |
| Guide Me Home | 2024 | Buy |
Jay Porter Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Black Water Rising | 2009 | Buy |
| Lamentation | 2014 | N/A |
| Pleasantville | 2015 | Buy |
| December Boys | 2016 | N/A |
| Give Up the Dead | 2017 | N/A |
| Broken Ground | 2018 | N/A |
| Rag and Bone | 2019 | N/A |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Cutting Season | 2012 | Buy |
Attica Locke is a crime fiction author from Houston, Texas who writes mysteries and legal thrillers rooted in the racial politics of the American South. Born in 1974 and named after the 1971 Attica Prison uprising, she grew up in a family with deep ties to the civil rights movement and to the small towns of East Texas along Highway 59.
Locke’s fiction draws heavily on her Texas roots. Her Highway 59 trilogy follows a Black Texas Ranger investigating crimes in rural East Texas communities where racial tensions simmer beneath the surface. The Jay Porter series centers on a Houston lawyer pulled into dangerous cases involving corruption and injustice. Her standalone novel The Cutting Season weaves together past and present on a Louisiana plantation.
Before turning to novels, Locke worked as a screenwriter for Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO, and other studios. She later wrote for the television series Empire, Netflix’s When They See Us, and Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, earning an Emmy nomination for the latter. Her debut novel Black Water Rising was a finalist for the Edgar Award, and she has since won the Edgar, the Harper Lee Prize, and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.