Bluebird, Bluebird (Highway 59, #1)

by Attica Locke

He admitted an affinity for working homicides with a racial element—murders with a particularly ugly taint on them, something in the method of killing or the motive that shamed our better selves, crimes that had to be condemned in order for a nation to hold its head up. Darren was careful not to call these hate crimes, though, as he had learned all too quickly that Texas cops were squeamish on the issue of marking any one crime as more heinous than another.

Wilson had hired him eight years ago, championing his promotion from state trooper to Texas Ranger, even going to bat for him against members of the top brass who didn’t think Darren had the soul of a Ranger, that Princeton and law school would burden him with a level of intellect and self-consciousness that wouldn’t serve him in the field, where instinct often ruled and the simplest conclusion was nearly always the right one, especially when it came to murders in rural Texas, which are nearly always preceded by someone proclaiming to anyone within earshot of the local watering hole that Some things just need killing.