Black Water Rising: A Novel (Jay Porter Series)

Rich in atmosphere of the "bayou city," Houston, Texas; rich in atmosphere of an area so oil-rich that "black gold" rises right to the ground surface; and rich in atmosphere of the Civil Rights struggle of the '60s, carried forward twenty years to the '80s setting of the book. ANYone would be proud to be able to say that this was his/her first book.

The characters were unsympathetic, the story extremely slow, writing clumsy. I struggled to make myself keeping reading. Nothing to catch or keep my interest at all. Main character broke and making decisions that are not believable, wife pregnant and putting up with this fool. Just a sadly written story.

This was a well-written, intense debut novel. Ms. Locke truly did an amazing job depicting the feel of the times and the city of Houston by utilizing the firsthand information provided by her parents. Great job, fantastic book. It held my attention to the very end.

This book functions on several levels and is much more than just a thriller. Attica Locke incorporates black history, Texas rascism, and-in depth character development to create a very strong first novel.

This novel was our bookclub selection for the month of April. The book read like and action movie. We had the pleasure of having the author skype in during our monthly meeting. We were able to ask questions and hear background information of the characters. We really enjoyed this novel!

I barely got through this, and only because I almost never quit a book once started. The plot line is ridiculous, the characters pathetic. The time line is set in a period in which the author clearly knows nothing first hand and has learned little from those who were there. The mistakes are multitudinous - black folk eat baked) chicken at every meal, there are "hearings" on whether a civil case can go forward (not a motion for summary judgment, just the judge deciding whether he'll try a case), SDS chapters have "senior officers," shotguns are reloaded with another "bullet," etc etc. Amazing that this book gets the reviews and attention it does, speaks very poorly for the critics. Just as today's musicians can't perform live and require the studio to technical "create" their marketable sound, this POS plays to perceived PC and never mind the ignorance. Don't waste your time, the politics are offensively shallow and historically wrong and the read is tedious and boring.

Can I have my money back now?

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.

Attica Locke is one of the finest contemporary writers out there! I stumbled upon her work by accident and have quickly become her biggest fan. Her books are well researched and her characters fully developed. There is not a false note to be found in the voices of her characters or in her storyline. Beautiful, lyrical prose with vivid description that will have you completely submerged in the world the protagonist inhabits. Flawless writing. As a white woman from Mississippi, I am a painfully familiar with the cultural attitudes of the deep south. This author nails them. She also weaves a complex political tale that alludes to some of the shenanigans going on in politics today. Attica Locke can not write fast enough to suit me. I am dying to read her next novel. (BTW, Attica, if you are reading this, Denzel Washington would make a great Jay Porter!)

Check out the full review at Kritters Ramblings

It is 1981 and although the civil rights movement is in the past, some places are still living as if it didn't occur. Jay Porter is an African American lawyer who is trying to obtain a better life for his family and neighbors despite the corporations taking advantage of his neighbors and causing problems. At the same time Jay is also still dealing with past mistakes and they will haunt him for his lifetime.

Jay was an interesting character and there were almost two plots going on at the same time - they definitely intertwined but I kind of wish they had intertwined quicker. There was quite a huge cast of characters and I had to make an org chart to keep them all in line and to remember who belong with each storyline and how they fit in relation to others - warning, it did get confusing. With patience I got everyone under control and was able to enjoy the storyline.

Black Water Rising is a well-written, albeit slow moving murder-mystery about a struggling, young lawyer caught up in oil business related cover-up. The setting is Houston in the 1980's when oil and greed provided the perfect backdrop for big company misbehavior. Jay, a former civil rights activist, tries to steer clear of drama having learned the pitfalls of being visible and outspoken. His curiosity and his concern about what might happen if he revealed what he knew prompt him to investigate on his own. He finde himself drawn into a situation after inadvertently stumbling upon a crime scene where he fishes a woman from the bayou minutes after hearing gunshots. Written with flashbacks to his 60-ish activist life in college, the story weaves together several interrelated stories that flesh out the characters. It took a while for me to get into the story because of the slow pace but about midway through it picks up. The abrupt ending left me wondering about what happens next.

“Black Water Rising” was my first introduction to Attica Locke and gave me a welcome perspective of life in Texas, away from the popular stereotypes. I enjoyed the police procedural spiced with civil rights legacy and the complicated racial dynamics of 1980s big city life.

In this adroit debut thriller, Attica Locke delivers the goods with an understated and assured confidence. The cadence, as well as the story, is brisk and balanced. She avoids the pitfalls of many debut authors, i.e. the prose is not self-conscious or cloying, and the story develops with a natural ease. Her sentences are a joy to read, as they are poised, with a sense of the poetic, and well scrubbed. This is a novel with political overtones and racial conflicts; however, Locke executes her narrative without pounding in the polemics or preaching to the choir. In this restrained and mostly character driven story, the corporate controversies develop with a refined intelligence, building with a controlled and subdued temperance. Moreover, Locke paints a keen portrait of Houston's Third Ward of 1981, a place where political activism in the African American community has declined since its days of Carl Hampton and the Black Panther activism of the 70's, as many black business owners and homeowners have moved to the suburbs.

Jay Porter is a young, thirtyish lawyer with a very pregnant wife, Bernie, living in the Third Ward and trying to pave a career. He has a tenebrous past that is revealed gradually within the arc of the story. At the beginning, we know he feels clouded and frustrated with how his career and life is unfolding, and there is a palpable tension between Jay and his wife. He tries, on her birthday, to surprise her with a boat ride on Buffalo Bayou in Houston. What stars off as a romantic quest turns into an uninvited adventure, as Jay saves a drowning woman and gets pulled into a quagmire of murder and dirty politics. Things get murkier as Bernie's father, a respected Reverend, beseeches Jay to get involved with the looming strike of the longshoreman dock workers. Although Jay was an activist for black power and equality in his college days, he does not want to get involved with this racially divided conflict. "This is not my fight," he murmurs over and over to himself. "This has nothing to do with me."

The thorny history of the Third and Fifth Wards, as well as Houston's power boom of the 70's and early 80's, informs Locke's superb story of human politics. She weaves Jay's past into the present with a lyrical control and economy of words, creating page-turning tension for the reader. This isn't about dead bodies piling up or gratuitous shoot-outs with larger-than-life characters. The characters in Locke's story are authentic, conflicted, and wholly believable. Jay's fight to provide for and protect his family and to forge a meaningful life are the gripping forces of this novel.

Locke skillfully blends the Houston climate and geography into the mood of the characters and the action of the story. The tone is pitch-perfect and the events progress with a measured intensity. Locke's gift for character and narrative kept me fastened to the novel from the arresting opening pages to its credible and transitional end. I eagerly look forward to her next novel. BLACK WATER RISING is distinctly open for a follow-up.

This is one of those murder mystery / David & Goliath / thriller with depth. The 80s Texas racism & sexism and atmospheric details give it an authentic sense of place, and Mr. Porter's history and motivations give us a rich character to follow. I appreciate the way his involvement in civil rights and Black Power and the trumped up case that nearly sank him - the dynamic of betrayal, and Mr. Porter's complicated relationship with the law and white people - give greater depth and dimension to what becomes much more than just another good story with period details.

There aren't very many African American mystery writers out there, so this novel was a welcome surprise. The author really did her research. The plot was well executed, with tidbits of historical relevance that helped set the stage. The main character, a tortured soul, complex and yet compelling, has checked out of life for the most part just going through the motions from one day to the next. Wake, work, wife, wake, work, wife. Shaky family foundations, married, but unable to trust his pregnant wife, unrewarding job and unresolved issues from his past to include an unresolved relationship that almost landed him in jail. These things continue to haunt him. With apprehension, he helps a distressed women out on the bayou that starts a chain of events that changes his life forever. Ultimately, he has to choose whether to stay checked out or get involved. A mix of themes that include mystery, suspense, historical events, civil rights & equality, mutiracial dating, betrayal & greed, reinvention and Texas oil reserves-- that may be 50 or so pages too long, but is still well worth the read. It hits its peak more than halfway and then coasts until the end. Very fast and easy read that is well worth it.

Black Water Rising tells the story of Jay Porter, a young, black lawyer struggling to make ends meet in 1981 Houston, Texas. To celebrate his pregnant wife's birthday, Jay hires a cut-rate boat for a moonlight cruise. When they hear a woman screaming, then shots, and finally splashing, Jay doesn't want to get involved, but his wife Bernie shames him into rescuing the woman from the bayou. A former activist in the Black Power movement who narrowly escaped jail time, Jay is leery of the white woman who refuses to talk to them. After dropping her off outside the police station, Jay and Bernie assume their involvement is done. But Jay can't leave it alone, especially after a man is found shot and the woman is arrested for the murder. Jay knows the man was threatening the woman, and tries to convince her to tell the truth, revealing that he was a witness. Soon Jay is bribed with $25,000 to keep his mouth shut by a very scary guy who follows him to make sure that he does. Meanwhile, Jay is defending a young black man who was beaten after a meeting of the longshoremen who are threatening to strike, and some powerful Texan oil men and the mayor would like Jay to disappear. This literary thriller skillfully weaves powerful themes of race relations and the business practices of oil corporations with an engaging murder investigation.

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