Jay Porter (Locke)

Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget. Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. But he's carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him. Houston, Texas, 1981. It is here that Jay believes he can make a fresh start. That is, until the night he impulsively saves a woman from drowning in the bayou-and opens a Pandora's box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston's corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past. With intelligent writing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.

In this sophisticated thriller, lawyer Jay Porter, hero of Attica Locke's bestseller Black Water Rising, returns to fight one last case, only to become embroiled once again in a dangerous game of shadowy politics and a witness to how far those in power are willing to go to win. Fifteen years after the events of Black Water Rising, Jay Porter is struggling to cope with catastrophic changes in his personal life and the disintegration of his environmental law practice. His victory against Cole Oil is still the crown jewel of his career, even if he hasn't yet seen a dime thanks to appeals. But time has taken its toll. Tired and restless, he's ready to quit. When a girl goes missing on Election Night, 1996, in the neighborhood of Pleasantville-a hamlet for upwardly mobile blacks on the north side of Houston-Jay, a single father, is deeply disturbed. He's been representing Pleasantville in the wake of a chemical fire, and the case is dragging on, raising doubts about his ability. The missing girl was a volunteer for one of the local mayoral candidates, and her disappearance complicates an already heated campaign. When the nephew of one of the candidates, a Pleasantville local, is arrested, Jay reluctantly finds himself serving as a defense attorney. With a man's life and his own reputation on the line, Jay is about to try his first murder in a case that will also put an electoral process on trial, exposing the dark side of power and those determined to keep it.