finished reading

This new-to-me series is complex, gritty, noir, and addictive.  I will say, as a Northerner, there are some cultural "things" I didn't get--especially the gravitas of being a Texas Ranger.  Having said that, the book is atmospheric and the novel's world is vivid.  Place and time are characters as much as any person.  Speaking of people--I am intrigued to read more about our hero, Texas Ranger Darren Matthews as he explores race and justice.  The female characters were somewhat one-dimensional but hopefully, they will be fleshed out in the next book.  I had figured out the murder but was engrossed with the story so I didn't have a smug feeling at the ending.

From the publisher:

A powerful thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire.

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.