An Atmospheric Thriller On a Louisiana Plantation
By Attica Locke
Harper 25.99 400 pages
The author of the acclaimed Black Water Rising is back with the intelligent mystery The Cutting Season. Attica Locke begins this engaging page-turner with a murder on an antebellum Louisiana plantation that is now a highly trafficked tourist spot – hosting tours, weddings, and historical reenactments. Caren Gray manages Belle Vie and resides near the plantation’s former slave quarters where her ancestors lived. When the body of a female migrant worker is discovered near the sugar cane fields where she worked, tensions flare at the plantation, especially since an outside corporation is outsourcing the field workers’ jobs to illegal laborers. Caren is also drawn into a deeper mystery about the fate of her great-great-great-grandfather, a slave and plantation worker, which she discovers has startling connections to the present-day murder. The Cutting Season also astutely explores issues of race and class in contemporary America, and Locke will no doubt acquire new fans with this atmospheric and thoughtful thriller.
Reviewed By Laura Di Giovine
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