given the electoral mayhem going on in the US right now, it was an interesting time for me to read this book and it felt like a good complement to the US's current election cycle. shenanigans, i tell you. shenanigans!

as happened with Locke's first book in the series ([b:Black Water Rising|7059096|Black Water Rising|Attica Locke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1273621095s/7059096.jpg|6394686]), i enjoyed this story but found it to have a few wobbles that took away from things for me while i read. Locke is great at character - i quite like when authors write convincingly the opposite gender to their own, and Locke does this well. and her supporting cast are interesting as well. again, the setting (Houston) and time (1996) are vividly portrayed. as a mystery, though, this did feel a bit clunky. while the level of manipulations going on were (sadly) believable, some of the incompetencies and conspiracies felt just a little bit too unreal. and also as in the first book, some of the plot threads just hung there.

Pleasantville was recently longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, so i was reading through that lens. and perhaps i have been tougher on the book because of that. overall, i did enjoy it - the book is a quick near page-turner, and a good bit of escapist reading which succeeds in pointing out the failings and vulnerabilities of American democracy.