The book reminded me of A Time to Kill by John Grisham. I could visually see Denzel Washington as Jay Porter. The story followed the same pattern as all the rest of the lawyer mysteries, with the family of the lawyer threatened by the "bad" man. The language and setting flowed as well as the muddy river waters. So many points or stories were left unresolved. I actually finished the book as the momentum picked up speed as the book progressed. Houston, TX in 1981 was a city built on oil, political corruption, and one festering with racial tension. Jay is trying to live his life and provide for his coming family, but seems to be having a hard time doing it. He doesn't have many paying clients and the few he does have aren't making him rich. When the birthday celebration he planned for his pregnant takes a horrible turn, his life is thrown into chaos that threatens to bring his college indescretions back to his present. Jay, because of his past, lives on a almost paranoid ledge that he never seems to be able to climb off of. He sleeps with a gun under his pillow plus owns 2 others. He's scared of the police and what could happen if he were to tell the police what happened the night of his wife's birthday.The book is an account of what happens in his head and in his life when forces out of his control drag him into a conspiracy that he has no way of figuring out who all the players are. This is where the book started to lose me. There are a lot of secondary charcaters, that while you know they are neccesary to the storyline, don't seem to be fully fleshed out. At times it's almost hard, at least for me, to keep track of who everyone is and where exactly they fit into the story. The main bad guy of the book, is barely seen, and when he does make an occastional appearance, it's brief and fleeting. I wanted more of the motivations from the man himself. Without anything being told from his point of view, the premise didn't seem to be as real as it could have been.My other problem was where the book ended. The book ends at a place that is good for Jay. His life seems to be claming down, his baby is newly born, and his career is starting to take on new aspect. What the book is missing is the solution to the conspiracy that caused all the problems to being with. What I wanted to see was the trial, and how Jay would handle such a large case. Would the Bad Guy continue to use intimidation to fight back even with the civil suit going forward? The book ended in such a way that if it was a TV show, I would expect a continuation message at the bottom of the screen.Now I know I'm in the minority on this one, most of the reviews I read before I started reading the book were glowingly positive. This was a book I had every intention of loving, and maybe my problem lies there. I went into it thinking I was going to fall in love, and I just felt lukewarm like for it. Everything that normally makes me love a book were there, including a setting that was perfectly chosen to frame a plot and a cast of characters that seemed to be at home amongst the events enfolding for the reader. The author is a brilliant wordsmith who can describe a scene in such detail that I would feel like I was there. She is truly talented and I would be more than happy to read her next novel, I just wish I would have liked this one more.
What do You think about Black Water Rising (2009)?
I liked it enough to start reading her next book: The Cutting Season which so far I like better.
—meg
Slow to get going, then it all seems a bit rushed, wound up in the last few pages.
—DarkNero95
another story that takes place in Houston. would not recommend.
—ssnnss
