Black Water Rising (Jay Porter #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 15, 2013 Beverly rated it really liked it

In her debut novel, Black Water Rising, Attica Locke gives us a literary thriller that grabs us from the opening page to the last page. It is Houston, Texas 1981 and Jay Porter, a struggling lawyer without two pennies to rub together, is about to take his pregnant wife on a boat ride on the bayou as a birthday celebration. As if they both have foresight of what is to come, each is hesitant for their own reasons on whether they should take this trip. Jay wonders if this will meet his wife’s expec In her debut novel, Black Water Rising, Attica Locke gives us a literary thriller that grabs us from the opening page to the last page. It is Houston, Texas 1981 and Jay Porter, a struggling lawyer without two pennies to rub together, is about to take his pregnant wife on a boat ride on the bayou as a birthday celebration. As if they both have foresight of what is to come, each is hesitant for their own reasons on whether they should take this trip. Jay wonders if this will meet his wife’s expectations. Bernie, his wife, wonders if the boat will survive the trip but she does not want her husband to be disappointed. But those thoughts are thrown aside as Jay pulls a drowning woman out of the water. He knows this is the right thing to do, but his inner voice and past tells him, he should not have gotten involved with a white woman running away from the black side of town. After leaving the woman on the police station steps, Jay and Bernie go home. But Jay cannot leave well enough alone, and wants to know more about this woman and as each clue he uncovers brings danger to him and his family, Jay wonders if he can turn away before he is drawn back into his past which he was barely able to survive.

This book provides us with a wonderful treat as besides the mystery story to be solved, there is the story of how Jay became the person that he is. It is a story about young people taking charge to bring about social change in the 1970s and how the establishment used their power to make sure that this change did not happen. This storyline is blended seamlessly with the mystery story and shows us that while things change the more things remain the same. The author did an excellent job of presenting time and location. The reader is transported to Houston and along with the heat and humidity will feel Houston’s growing pains as she comes into her own as an oil power town. There are a variety of characters, some you will love and some you will dislike. However, I would like to have learned more about Bernie, as at times I did not understand her behavior, especially when she was in danger.

I enjoyed this book and while the action in the book is centered in the 1970s and 1980s, it is very current with our times as we examine the connection between government, business and energy and the struggle between greed and doing what is right. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy thrillers, mysteries and storylines with contemporary themes.

Reviewed by Beverly
APOOO BookClub
March 18, 2009
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Apr 04, 2020 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, hard-boiled, crime, fiction, suspense-thriller

This was good, but also frustrating and a bit bloated.

The foolishness of this errand is not lost on him. But he feels reeled in by her, yoked by his own curiosity and his inability to take at face value Elise’s promise to leave him out of her troubles. Somewhere deep down, he knows. It’s his own fault. He knows what the weight of his past has cost him, then and now. He knows the places where he can’t let go. Where his faith falls short.

His wife still out of the house, the dirty money still

This was good, but also frustrating and a bit bloated.

The foolishness of this errand is not lost on him. But he feels reeled in by her, yoked by his own curiosity and his inability to take at face value Elise’s promise to leave him out of her troubles. Somewhere deep down, he knows. It’s his own fault. He knows what the weight of his past has cost him, then and now. He knows the places where he can’t let go. Where his faith falls short.

His wife still out of the house, the dirty money still stashed inside his office, the man in the black Ford still at large, in possession of Jay’s .22…. He has not slept a solid night in days.

Or is it years?

He gets mixed up sometimes.

The eponymous “black water rising” is not - as I first thought (as, perhaps, we are meant to think?) the dark bayou water, but petroleum. It hovers in the background of this story but never takes center stage.

Jay Porter is the only one who owns center stage, as he darts back and forth between “keep my mouth shut” and “I just speak out”; between his wife and his past; between his father-in-law’s interest in a labor dispute and his own law practice. Jay spends a lot of time darting back and forth. For a guy who is determined to stay out of it, he sure keeps poking his nose in it. And that is a common trait in a protagonist who is a private detective (or, in this case, a lawyer), but it still felt inconsistent here.

I got really annoyed with the excessive flashbacks to Jay’s past as a rabble rousing college student demonstrating for civil rights. The flashbacks served only to deepen Jay’s character, but really had NOTHING to do with the plot. If it’s not moving the plot forward, I don’t want to read it, I want it excised.

Locke is a screenwriter, and that shows here. I’m surprised this book hasn’t been picked up for a movie. The scenes are all tailor-made for a dramatic suspense movie (or a suspenseful drama, depending on which way the director chooses to go).

I was disappointed that the women in the story did not play bigger roles. The mystery revolves around Elise, who may or may not have killed a man. But Elise is never more than a plot point. We aren’t meant to sympathize with her, and I never cared about her. Then there’s Jay’s secretary Eddie-Mae who takes his messages and asks to leave early and never plays a bigger role than that.

And finally there is Jay’s pregnant wife. Bernie feels important to the story, but I never fully understood their relationship. Did they love each other? Did they understand each other? Did they support each other? It’s Bernie’s father who keeps calling Jay away, but Bernie seems angry with Jay for doing that, at the same time she seems devoted to her father. Bernie’s role in this plot is to be the vulnerable pregnant belly, the reason for Jay to be out on the bayou that night, the reason Jay became involved with Elise, the connection between Jay and the striking dock workers. But Bernie could be removed from this book and not much would change, all of those pieces could fall into place in another way, without her. (It seems that Locke realized Bernie’s superfluity, since she removes her from the next book, Bernie is conveniently dead.)

And, I never really liked or cared about Jay.

The final insult was the ending: nothing is truly resolved. If Locke had not written another Jay Porter book, I would never even know if Jay survived the multiple hits put on him.

Although I felt this book was bloated, and sagged in the middle under its own weight, I still liked Locke’s writing, and I will pick up another book from her; perhaps not another Jay Porter book, though. And hopefully her next book is less bloated.
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