Reminiscent of early John Grisham‚ Walter Mosley‚ and James Lee Burke‚ a powerful new voice in American fiction introduces a protagonist you immediately root for won't soon forget..
Jay knows a boat ride on the Bayou won't measure up to his wife's expectations of a birthday celebration but it's all he can afford. A former student organizer during the 60s‚ his work as a personal injury attorney doesn't exactly inspire him. Once a man of virtuous ideals‚ he had an even grander faith in the possibility of the American Dream but now he's merely going through the motions‚ waiting for the kind of break that will pay the bills and maybe afford him something nicer than the polyester JC Penny suit he wears daily to the court house. All that changes when midway through the birthday dinner‚ gun shots and sharp cries for help penetrate the otherwise silent river. When he fishes a woman out of the bayou‚ black dirt coating her skin‚ dead leaves clinging to her arms‚ his sixth sense tells him this charitable act will lead to no good. Unable‚ nonetheless‚ to resist unraveling the woman's past‚ Jay finds himself enmeshed in a web that brings together greed‚ politics‚ and corporate corruption. He's also forced to revisit his own troubled past‚ the scars from which run deeper than even he can admit and include a brush with the FBI and a tie to a now senior city official.
Set in Houston in the early 80s‚ a city that can't keep up with its own growth as post-war America's love for highways and big cars make gas the most coveted commodity in the country‚ this is a taut‚ fast-moving American novel that heralds an exciting new voice in fiction.
