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Books

Murder in a black Texas Arcadia

Attica Locke’s smart legal thriller, Pleasantville, is set in an elegant suburb of Houston, specifically designed for middle-class blacks. But it’s still a ghetto — with very few exit points

18 April 2015

9:00 AM

18 April 2015

9:00 AM

Pleasantville Attica Locke

Serpent’s Tail, pp.420, £14.99

Mystery fans and writers are always looking for new locations in which murder can take place. Attica Locke has an absolute beauty in her latest thriller, Pleasantville. The eponymous district in Houston, Texas, was created in the aftermath of the second world war: ‘a planned community of new homes, spacious and modern in design, and built specifically for negro families of means and class’.

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