Matthew McElroy > Recent Status Updates

Hold on.
What state are they in again?
Just wait half a page.
My one qualm with Locke is that she won't stop writing about Texas.

Settings matter. They have impact on all us.
But this is like a chorus.

We won't forget if you let us go a full chapter without mentioning it.

I get that Darren is a dedicated man of the law, but he really just left his perfect girl at home to be in East Texas dealing with these rednecks.
Not five pages ago, either.

That was not the twist I was expecting.

But kudos for bringing it in the third act and not the last 20 pages.

One of my favorite pop culture tropes is the drizzled lieutenant who yells a lot and tells his cops to stop screwing around and do this one by the book, but really does want to see justice get done.
Mathews and Wilson seem to have a good literary dynamic. I have NO IDEA how real that is.

Pretty solid murder mystery so far. I'll have to give some thought as to how Attica Locke compares to S.A. Cosby. I enjoy the setting of rural East Texas more than Houston.
In the two Locke books I have read, all four initial deaths have occurred by drowning. I wonder if there is a reason for that. Is it a theme in her books?

If Thomas Moore is "Ireland's national bard" I hope that wasn't the best of his writing. Woof, those poems were awful.

Memories of Ulster by Caroline Blackwood- a sardonic, honest, longing essay on why Ulster matters at all. The central conceit seems to be, "Why does anyone pretend to be concerned about Ulster, when Ulster barely cares about itself?"

Bao, the detective, has the more interesting story.
Ah San, the fox woman, is the more interesting character.
Is this by design? Can an author be so talented that they create a boring character that has interesting things happen, and a complicated character has a mundane journey?

That is way too neat and tidy- Bao has a sad backstory, and the people he meets all have their own interaction with the missing fox woman.

Strong characters- love how it sprawls across time and space, not dozens of unnecessary characters. Choo uses her words to build characters and plot, not add fake intrigue.

The mystery is coming together. I'm glad that Choo is keeping this story small and targeted for now.
When i read these mysteries, the cheapest way to keep the mystery going is to have the protagonist walk into a bar and have the local drunk say, "Well I heard she had a jealous boyfriend." Cool, we are in for another 40 pages that will end up nowhere.
I respect a story that stays focused.

We have two perspectives- a woman with a fox spirit, or a fox with a woman's body, and an older detective.
A woman shows up dead in the city, and both people are searching for her.
There is a feeling that Snow, the fox spirit, may be one of those anti-heroes, who are completely intriguing.
Bao, the detective, seems much more straightforward.

Carmilla was a solid story. I may have enjoyed it more if QPB hadn't introduced it for what it was, and I had to follow along with the story. The story is a slow build to the violent, necessary, and a bit sad, end.

Did we ever figure out who the mother was? Did I miss that part?

I may have missed something, but I am not entirely sure what Van Sertima was trying to prove with the chapter on corn. I THINK he is saying corn was in the Old World, before the Columbian Exchange (the easiest term for now). This one deals with American contact less than any other chapter, which is interesting. He does not seem to argue that Africans sailed to America, got corn and came returned with it.

Of all of Van Sertima's claims, this one seems to be the most definitive.
Either Africans brought tobacco and smoking tools to the New World, or they didn't. It is so easy that it almost works against him. It's one thing to say that historians and scientists came to their fields with hundreds of years of ingrained racism. I have no argument there. But to overlook something this obvious is nearly impossible.

This may be the most convincing chapter in the book.
How did these plants that originated in Africa show evidence of cultivation prior to European arrival.
Love.
It.

What a strange chapter. It starts off intensely discussing the Nubian influence at the end of the Egyptian civilization. Van Sertima's premise is that Black Africans were much more influential than the Egyptians we recognize today- a strong mix of Middle-Eastern and Greek cultures.
Then he builds on that idea, asserting that, even before Christ, there are images of Black people in Olmec art.

Ainsley is a completely convincing character. He's a down on his luck "son of the soil". He's not a racist, but if you didn't take the time to get to know him, you would jump to that conclusion, and it would be understandable. His language is coarse- he calls Jay "son" and "boy". But he invites him into his house, and offers him something to drink. Smart writing.

Strange to think the story takes place in 1981. But it does lend more weight to Porter's experience with the civil rights movement.

How long has Cynthia been 'this person'?
And is Jay wrong about her being 'this person' or is he a sucker?

Ooooh, Elise Lishey is shifty. I wonder if she is the local girl with street smarts, able to work the biggest players- Lockman and Cole. Or if the big dogs are just toying with a former stripper, who is grabbing for anything to stay at the top.
Porter doesn't seem to be making much headway on this case. In fact, though he is gathering info, he seems to be losing ground.

I am really enjoying Jay as the lawyer who can't get out of his own way. Other lawyers and cops and detectives- when they are faced with these situations, are calm, cool and collected.
Jay gets drunk, lies to his wife, and hides information from his ex. I suppose it keeps the reader in greater suspense.
But we really are seeing what would happen if an average guy got put into an extraordinary circumstances.

Jay's past is well-developed. He's not a one note civil rights organizer. He isn't some hot shot kid from the suburbs. There's much more going on that factors into the story. His flaws make him a more interesting, more believable protagonist.

Jay's car winds up on the railroad tracks with some thug threatening him, as a train barrels down the tracks.
Now we all know what's going to happen. Because Jay is the protagonist and the book is less than half over.

But Locke fills that scene with intensity, which is next to impossible, because anyone who has ever read a book has an idea of how it ends.

I guess most murder mysteries are the same, outside of the details.
Locke has put in some pretty good details- the protagonist knows the mayor from college. There are rival unions at the Houston docks. What happened to Marshall's boat? Bernie is pregnant.

No argument from me on the importance of Black-Africans on the development of Egypt. Van Sertima's accumulation of research on the development of agriculture by sub-Saharan people is enjoyable.
But this chapter feels like padding, if he is proving that Africans crossed the Atlantic.
I wonder where he is going with the next chapter on the 25th Dynasty.

I keep having trouble placing Jay's age. I think of him between 28-35. But because the book takes place in the past, my timeline is a bit scrambled. If Jay is in college in the late 70s, that would make him older than my father.
And I am 43, as of 2025.

I can't believe this is her first book. Everything seems so smooth. The characters are deep, the plot is moving along quickly, the scenes are well-developed.
I didn't think I was a mystery guy, but here we are.
Moseley.
Cosby.
Locke.

Locke is a talented writer. Her prose flows, like she is completely comfortable with the material.
Stop reading that Kristin Hannah slop. It always feels stilted and forced. Attica Locke is bringing real talent.

As Van Sertima continues, he is building a more convincing case. It isn't just the ABILITY of Africans to sail across the Atlantic, it is now anthropological evidence. There are linguistic and religious similarities. Symbols that the Mandingo took from the Arabs and shared with the people of Mexico.

Fascinating.

I have been waiting so long to read this. And it has not disappointed at all. I am only three stories in, but they have all been excellent.
Remember that friend you had who was a REALLY good writer? Well imagine if they transcended genre and kept everything super tight. That is this, so far.