9780061901898
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Black Water Rising audiobook

  • By: Attica Locke
  • Narrator: Dion Graham
  • Category: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers
  • Length: 13 hours 52 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: June 09, 2009
  • Language: English
  • (5273 ratings)
(5273 ratings)
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Black Water Rising Audiobook Summary

Attica Locke–a writer and producer of FOX’s Empire–delivers an engrossing, complex, and cinematic thriller about crime and racial justice

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist (Mystery/Thriller)
Edgar Award Nominee (Best First Novel)
The Orange Prize for Fiction (Shortlist)

“A near-perfect balance of trenchant social commentary, rich characterizations, and action-oriented plot…. Attica Locke [is] a writer wise beyond her years.”
Los Angeles Times

“Atmospheric… deeply nuanced… akin to George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane…. Subtle and compelling.”
New York Times

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Black Water Rising Audiobook Narrator

Dion Graham is the narrator of Black Water Rising audiobook that was written by Attica Locke

Attica Locke is the author of Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the UK’s Orange Prize, and also the national bestseller The Cutting Season, which won an Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. She is a producer and writer on the Fox drama Empire. She is on the board of directors for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, where she lives.

About the Author(s) of Black Water Rising

Attica Locke is the author of Black Water Rising

Black Water Rising Full Details

Narrator Dion Graham
Length 13 hours 52 minutes
Author Attica Locke
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date June 09, 2009
ISBN 9780061901898

Subjects

The publisher of the Black Water Rising is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers

Additional info

The publisher of the Black Water Rising is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780061901898.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Lauren

February 05, 2017

Is this my first great crime novel read of the year? I think it is.Black Water Rising is superb. Set in Houston in the early eighties, it begins when Jay Porter--a struggling ambulance-chaser and traumatized former idealist--takes his wife, Bernie, on a late-night boat ride through the bayou as a birthday present. It isn't going well--the boat he's hired is much shabbier than he was led to believe, and the man he thought would be captaining it has left an untrustworthy cousin in his stead--and then, miraculously, it is: the night is lovely, the refreshments seem to pull everything together, and Jay maybe has a win on his hands. Then they hear a struggle and some gunshots and Jay rescues a white woman from the water. Obviously they should call the police, but the boat's temporary captain doesn't have a license and Jay, whose civil rights activism in college once angered authorities enough to have him arrested on trumped-up charges, is likewise leery. They settle for dropping the woman off in front of the police station, where she can walk in... or not.This kicks off a tangled but naturally-unfurling set of complications both past and present, as the mystery around that night seems to uneasily begin to coalesce with Houston's oil-driven economy, racial tensions, and ambitious mayor. Even the flashbacks--and I am generally an avowed enemy of flashbacks--are well-done and significant, showing us Jay as a passionate and charismatic student leader and crusader for justice. Those qualities are still there within him, even if they've been buried by justified paranoia and cautiousness, and Black Water Rising is in part a novel-length struggle over whether or not Jay's actions in the present will bring him back to the values of his past. And that's in addition to wondering whether or not his one-time girlfriend (now also his mayor) sold him out to the cops and trying to figure out what happened that night on the boat--and what happened to get to that.Locke does an excellent job revealing the solution to her mystery in stages, and even if you can guess the nature of it--and with historical perspective, you probably can--you probably can't quite guess the ins-and-outs of it or the ramifications it will have for Jay, for whom the stakes are high. That same smoothness--and even that same sense of suspense--is replicated in the prose itself, which is evocative but unshowy:Monday mornings at the civil courthouse are usually slow going. The place lacks the focus or feeling of purpose of the criminal courthouse, a building that practically crackles with the electric energy of righteous indignation, a feeling running under everything, even the most mundane office tasks, that something huge is at stake. There are murderers and rapists in the hallways, crooks and thieves roaming the building; there are handcuffs and officers with guns. The spectacle alone is enough to fill everyone with a sense of heroic purpose, or at least a heated feeling of excitement. In a civil courtroom, there is only one thing at stake: money. Questions of right or wrong, who did what to whom, are stripped of their morality here and reduced to a numerical equation. What is your pain worth? What's the going rate for sorrow? If it's not your money or pain that's at stake, it's kind of hard to get too fired up about the proceedings, nor do they draw much of a crowd.Debut novels can be rough and debut crime novels can be rougher, can sometimes get out into the world with weak writing as long as they have a good hook. Black Water Rising has sophisticated storytelling and a polished style and it's almost impossible to believe it was Locke's first published novel. (She's also a veteran scriptwriter, but the talents aren't always the same: clearly she's good at both.) And Black Water Rising was blurbed by Ellroy and Pelecanos. I can't believe it took me this long to read it, but at least my unconscionable delay means I have two other novels of hers waiting for me.

Mara

October 04, 2022

3.5 stars - The writing in this is just *chef's kiss*. So evocative, so immersive! I wasn't totally sold on the mystery/suspense plot itself (it felt very Grisham-esque, and that's just not my go-to), but this is a slow burning noir tale of racial injustice, political dealing, and reconciling your past with your present

switterbug (Betsey)

March 12, 2011

In this adroit debut thriller, Attica Locke delivers the goods with an understated and assured confidence. The cadence, as well as the story, is brisk and balanced. She avoids the pitfalls of many debut authors, i.e. the prose is not self-conscious or cloying, and the story develops with a natural ease. Her sentences are a joy to read, as they are poised, with a sense of the poetic, and well scrubbed. This is a novel with political overtones and racial conflicts; however, Locke executes her narrative without pounding in the polemics or preaching to the choir. In this restrained and mostly character driven story, the corporate controversies develop with a refined intelligence, building with a controlled and subdued temperance. Moreover, Locke paints a keen portrait of Houston's Third Ward of 1981, a place where political activism in the African American community has declined since its days of Carl Hampton and the Black Panther activism of the 70's, as many black business owners and homeowners have moved to the suburbs.Jay Porter is a young, thirtyish lawyer with a very pregnant wife, Bernie, living in the Third Ward and trying to pave a career. He has a tenebrous past that is revealed gradually within the arc of the story. At the beginning, we know he feels clouded and frustrated with how his career and life is unfolding, and there is a palpable tension between Jay and his wife. He tries, on her birthday, to surprise her with a boat ride on Buffalo Bayou in Houston. What stars off as a romantic quest turns into an uninvited adventure, as Jay saves a drowning woman and gets pulled into a quagmire of murder and dirty politics. Things get murkier as Bernie's father, a respected Reverend, beseeches Jay to get involved with the looming strike of the longshoreman dock workers. Although Jay was an activist for black power and equality in his college days, he does not want to get involved with this racially divided conflict. "This is not my fight," he murmurs over and over to himself. "This has nothing to do with me."The thorny history of the Third and Fifth Wards, as well as Houston's power boom of the 70's and early 80's, informs Locke's superb story of human politics. She weaves Jay's past into the present with a lyrical control and economy of words, creating page-turning tension for the reader. This isn't about dead bodies piling up or gratuitous shoot-outs with larger-than-life characters. The characters in Locke's story are authentic, conflicted, and wholly believable. Jay's fight to provide for and protect his family and to forge a meaningful life are the gripping forces of this novel.Locke skillfully blends the Houston climate and geography into the mood of the characters and the action of the story. The tone is pitch-perfect and the events progress with a measured intensity. Locke's gift for character and narrative kept me fastened to the novel from the arresting opening pages to its credible and transitional end. I eagerly look forward to her next novel. BLACK WATER RISING is distinctly open for a follow-up.

Clif

March 03, 2012

This murder-mystery-thriller novel provides a portrayal of 1980s Houston, Texas through the eyes of a young African American lawyer who has a past history of involvement in the black power movement of the late 60s. It is one man's personal journey told through flashbacks of past experiences intermixed with the current story that occurs during the Reagan administration of the 1980s. The time may be post civil rights legislation, but racial feelings are still raw. From the perspective of the main character, all whites (including the police) are bad, dangerous, threatening or untrustworthy people. Thus this book provides a virtual window for white readers into the black experience of dealing with structural racism supported by moneyed power structures. (I'm not qualified to speculate on the experience of the black reader.)It's interesting to note the parts of the story that remind the reader of the time and place being described. One clue is the lingering aftermath of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and the beginning indications of the 80s oil glut. Another 1980s fact of life is that it seems that everybody is smoking in offices and public places. (Amazing we didn't all die of second hand smoke.) Also, nobody has a cell phone. (Life was so dangerous then with no cell phones to call for help when needed.)This is a well written mystery that keeps the reader guessing along with the protagonist. I liked the way the author managed to haunt the current story with flashbacks to parallel stories from the past. I also liked its ending that included the aspect of hope, but remained short of a "happily ever after" conclusion. (Much more realistic that way.) I heard the author speak about the book at the KC Plaza Library on March 21, 2012.

Stacey

April 23, 2010

There aren't very many African American mystery writers out there, so this novel was a welcome surprise. The author really did her research. The plot was well executed, with tidbits of historical relevance that helped set the stage. The main character, a tortured soul, complex and yet compelling, has checked out of life for the most part just going through the motions from one day to the next. Wake, work, wife, wake, work, wife. Shaky family foundations, married, but unable to trust his pregnant wife, unrewarding job and unresolved issues from his past to include an unresolved relationship that almost landed him in jail. These things continue to haunt him. With apprehension, he helps a distressed women out on the bayou that starts a chain of events that changes his life forever. Ultimately, he has to choose whether to stay checked out or get involved. A mix of themes that include mystery, suspense, historical events, civil rights & equality, mutiracial dating, betrayal & greed, reinvention and Texas oil reserves-- that may be 50 or so pages too long, but is still well worth the read. It hits its peak more than halfway and then coasts until the end. Very fast and easy read that is well worth it.

Lois

March 25, 2019

This dragged in a few places but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.Jay is a former member of SNCC who gets frustrated and forms a Black Panther style Black Liberation group in the 70's. COINTELPRO begins to convict his friends on trumped up charges, out right murdering Fred Hamilton. Jay is arrested, beats his charge and goes to law school. 10 years later he's noticing that the few comrades of his that slipped through the government's fingers are still being watched.Into this tension drops a chance encounter that is much more than it appears on the surface.

Monica **can't read fast enough**

June 24, 2018

A good read that felt realistic. I'll be reading more from her. Review to come.

James

April 28, 2015

Excellent. Would recommend to anyone. Try to listen to it. It is read by Dion Graham and he is the best! I would put this book into my category as one I would not like to listen too because the writing is so very good. But, again, Graham is great. I didn't not give it 5 stars because I reserve that for my favorite books. This comes very close.

Dorothy

June 22, 2020

I read Attica Locke's acclaimed book, Bluebird, Bluebird, in 2017 and promised myself that I would read more. Finally, with Black Water Rising, I'm beginning to fulfill that promise to myself.This book is actually Locke's first published novel. It came out in 2009 and was nominated for all sorts of awards including the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. The book is set in Locke's hometown of Houston, Texas in 1981. We moved here a few years later and I can attest that her references to places in the city and to the culture and attitudes of the place in the 1980s ring true.Houston in 1981 was growing fast. Too fast. The city was built on a base of oil and the oil "barons" had virtually free rein in it. It was a city where a lot of people were trying to make a new start in their lives. Among them was Jay Porter.Porter was an African-American lawyer with a fledgling practice that he ran out of a dingy strip mall. His clients are mostly poor and barely able to pay him, if at all. His most promising case at the moment involves a prostitute who is suing her john.It's not exactly the legal practice Porter had dreamed of in his college days as a civil rights activist, but now he's married, with a wife almost ready to deliver their first child. He's made his peace for the moment with his dreams of glory and is just trying to get by and support and protect his family.Porter had been born in an East Texas town called Nigton where he had learned a valuable lesson:“Keep your head down, speak only when spoken to. A warning drilled into him every day of his life growing up in Nigton, Texas, née Nig Town, née Nigger Town (its true birth name when it sprang up a hundred years ago in the piney woods of East Texas).”He had abandoned that strategy somewhat as a college student at the University of Houston, where he had been active in the civil rights movement and had rubbed shoulders with people like Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton. But as a lawyer, he had other priorities:“Practicing law, he would soon find out, is like running any other small business. Most days he’s just trying to make his overhead: insurance and filing fees, Eddie Mae’s meager salary, plus $500 a month to lease the furnished office space on West Gray. He, quite frankly, can’t afford his principles.”While at the University of Houston, he had also rubbed shoulders and other parts of the body with another UH student named Cynthia Maddox. When Jay was arrested and charged with a felony, it had ruptured their relationship. He was acquitted, but Cynthia had abandoned him. Now she is the mayor of Houston, the first woman to hold that position. (Kathy Whitmire was, in fact, the first woman to be elected to that position and that was in the 1980s.) Jay wants to do something special for his wife for her birthday and he settles on a (he hopes) romantic nighttime barge trip on Buffalo Bayou. The plan goes reasonably well until on the way back they hear two gunshots and a woman's scream and then a splash as something large hits the waters of the bayou. They can hear someone struggling in the muck and Bernie, the wife, insists that Jay go into the black waters to help. He can't say no so he strips off and jumps in, finds a woman struggling in the water, and brings her to the barge. She is a White woman who is clearly uneasy as she views the three Black people, including the captain, on the barge, but they get her to shore and again Bernie insists that they take her to the police station. They leave her there on the steps of the station as Jay drives very slowly and carefully away, making sure he obeys all traffic laws.Meantime, there is tension brewing between the Black Brotherhood of Longshoremen and the White International Longshoremen's Association over whether to strike for equality of pay and treatment. The tension bursts into flame when a teenage member of the Black group is brutally beaten by three White men. Jay's father-in-law, Reverend Boykins, requests his help. He wants him to reach out to the mayor to try to bring peace between the two groups. Jay is reluctant but it is impossible to refuse the man who is the closest thing to a father that he has.The author skillfully develops these parallel tracks of her plot until we finally are able to see connections. Those connections all lead back to the power structure, the real power structure, of the city.Attica Locke had me from the first paragraph of this book. She made palpable for me the fear and anxiety that are an integral part of the Black male's (or female's, for that matter) interactions with the police. We know only too well that those interactions in American society are fraught with inequality and, too often, a lack of respect on the part of the police. And too often they end in tragedy.And how do we reach that Utopia of equality? I give you the Reverend Boykins:“Rev says, “pretending people aren’t black is not the way to equality. It’s not even possible, first of all. Any more than I can pretend you aren’t who you are.”Maybe we just have to accept each other as we are, realizing that we all bleed the same color red, and start from there.

Mark

May 20, 2017

This was a debut novel for Locke, immersing us in the racial politics of Houston in the 1980s. At the center of this story is Jay Porter, a struggling black lawyer who is awaiting his first child and who has a troubled past as a civil rights activist who was betrayed by some internal snitches. On a steamy evening, he takes his wife Bernie for a low-rent cruise along the bayou that bisects the booming oil city, and when they are almost done, they hear gunshots and a woman's cry for help. Soon, they are loading a young white woman onto the boat, and they later drop her at a police station.Paranoid from his previous brushes with the law, Porter does not go to the police with what happened, sure he is likely to become a target. But the case won't leave him alone, because suddenly a mysterious stranger tells him to stay out of the case. Of course, Porter won't, and that leads him into an increasingly murky and harrowing investigation of why the woman he rescued was involved in a shooting death.In the meantime, his father in law talks him into representing a young African American dock worker who has been beat up during labor strife among the longshoremen, and that provides the book's other subplot, including Porter's past love affair with the woman who is now Houston's mayor.The book isn't without flaws -- it could have been trimmed, and the bad guy who pursues Porter has an almost Terminator-like ability to keep showing up -- but the characters are complex, the descriptive scenes are rich, and I felt like I got a real taste of this high-danger, high-humidity city. It was also refreshing to see Locke tackle racial prejudice and complexity so honestly.

Margaret

August 16, 2009

good crime mystery.back drop of civilrights movement.

LL

August 18, 2015

Moved a little slow, a lot of twists and turns, but a good read. Enjoyed the complexity of the lead character Jay Porter, a man with many demons.The ending was a little flat, left me wondering what, thats it??? Guess it will pick up in Locke's followup, "Pleasantville".

Sarah

September 16, 2011

Somehow I thought this book was a mystery. But the real mystery is Jay Porter...why he doesn't connect with his wife whom he loves, who loves him, and on whom he hangs his whole future.There is that mysterious rescue of a woman from drowning in the bayou; a young man gets beat up by union guys who supposedly support the strike; oil seepage in the back yard of a kook who did a a one-man march on Washington; why is somebody following Jay or is he just paranoid from his "militant" days in the 70's.But somehow I connected with Jay because I lived through the turbulent 60's and 70's. Although I never had a platform, my husband and I associated with people who were known as "militant," we had our phone bugged, and I often found myself spouting the rhetoric, "by any means necessary." (Ms. Locke uses the term "militant" only once in the whole book, in referring to Stokely Carmichael.)Jay Porter was like so many people I knew from "The Movement," so I couldn't put this book down. I was transported back in time to those days when we had to be doing something relevant. It was a troubling story that will stay with me for a long time.

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