Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Cutting Season | 2012 | Attica Locke | Buy |
The Cutting Season by Attica Locke is a literary thriller set on Belle Vie, a former antebellum plantation between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that now operates as an event venue. Caren Gray, an African-American single mother who grew up on the property and now manages it, discovers the body of a migrant worker in a shallow grave at the edge of the grounds.
As Caren investigates, she uncovers a parallel mystery involving a slave who vanished from Belle Vie more than a hundred years earlier. The novel moves between past and present, examining how the legacies of slavery continue to shape the land and the people connected to it. The Cutting Season won the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was named a Best Mystery of 2012 by Library Journal.