Why a Booktrail?
1981: On a dark night, out on the Houston bayou to celebrate his wife’s birthday, Jay Porter hears a scream……
Black Water Rising
What you need to know before your trail
Lawyer Jay Porter is having a night out on the Houston bayou when he hears a woman from drowning. This impulsive act however will soon put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his law practice, his family and even his life.
In order to solve the mystery whose tentacles reach to the highest reaches of corporate power, he must first confront the demons of his past.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Houston, Texas
There are three strands to the story of this town all inspired by real live events in 1981 Texas.
This reads as a snapshot of Reagan’s America. Jay Porter has a history of activism and is an ardent supporter of Martin Luther King. He has suffered personally and professionally for his role in the fight for equality and for everything he believes in.
Houston is evoked as a city on the brink – wrapped up with race relations, political intrigue and of course the oil industry.
The story on the bayou
Where the story starts and where Jay rescues a drowned woman in the bayou. Who she is and what she will lead Jay to is yet to be discovered yet this simple event in a beautiful part of the city may not be all it seems –
“It is little more than a narrow muddy strip of water following some thirty feet below street level; it snakes through the underbelly of the city, starting to the west and going through downtown all the way out to the Ship Channel and the port of Houston where it eventually spills out into the Gulf of MExico”
The docks – Shocking racism
Jay becomes involved in a strike of the black Houston dockworkers and this has consequences surrounding his own political past in the Black Power movement in the 1960’s. History of the man himself and of Houston at that time is evoked in fine and interesting detail –
Houston corridors of power – as slippery as oil
Jay’s former girlfriend is now Mayor of Houston. She’s trying to get back into his life but would this have anything to do with the fact that Jay is now active in the criminal world there now?
Where Next?
