Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Definitely My Wheelhouse

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

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As a reader of mysteries, I’ve always been a fan of the more hardboiled variety and especially those with a strong sense of place—George Pelecanos writing about Washington D.C., Dennis Lehane writing about Boston, James Lee Burke writing about Louisiana, and most recently, Craig Johnson writing about Absaroka County (not a real county) in Wyoming.  Well, now I can add Attica Locke to this list. Her focus is East Texas and her novels are rich and complex, featuring flawed protagonists, who find themselves in tricky […]

Big City, Bad Dreams

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

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Regarding the culture we consume, all of us have books, movies, albums, etc. that we keep meaning to get to, and want to get to, but put off for various reasons. Other things attract our attention or we make excuses or whatever. And when you inevitably get around to what you’ve been putting off, nine times out of ten you’ll wonder why you did. All that to say, I’ve put off on reading Attica Locke’s work for far too long. I made excuses too. I didn’t even […]

This should turn into a good show eventually

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I think the writing in this book is really good. It’s as good as anything by Walter Mosley I have read, and that’s not entirely a good thing, but it’s good. But it happens to be a LOT like the second season of the Wire in a lot of ways and it’s about Black Panthers in some ways, so I get it, people don’t like it. The story here takes place in Houston in 1980. It’s several years after our protagonist Jay Porter was a […]



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