The Cutting Season - Large Print by Attica Locke (Paperback)

About the Book

From Attica Locke, a writer and producer of FOX s Empire:

The Cutting Seasonis a rare murder mystery with heft, a historical novel that thrills, a page-turner that makes you think. Attica Locke is a dazzling writer with a conscience. Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Timesbestselling author ofWench

After her breathtaking debut novel, Black Water Rising, won acclaim from major publications and respected crime fiction masters like James Ellroy and George Pelecanos, Locke returns withThe Cutting Season, a second novel easily as gripping and powerful as her first a heart-pounding thriller that interweaves two murder mysteries, one on Belle Vie, a historic landmark in the middle of Lousiana s Sugar Cane country, and one involving a slave gone missing more than one hundred years earlier.Black Water Risingwas nominated for aLos Angeles Times Book Prize, an Edgar(r) Award, and an NAACP Image Award, and was short-listed for the Orange Prize in the U.K."

Book Synopsis

From Attica Locke, a writer and producer of FOX's Empire:

"The Cutting Season is a rare murder mystery with heft, a historical novel that thrills, a page-turner that makes you think. Attica Locke is a dazzling writer with a conscience."--Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Times bestselling author of Wench

After her breathtaking debut novel, Black Water Rising, won acclaim from major publications and respected crime fiction masters like James Ellroy and George Pelecanos, Locke returns with The Cutting Season, a second novel easily as gripping and powerful as her first. This heart-pounding literary thriller interweaves two compelling murder mysteries: one on Belle Vie, a historic landmark in the middle of Lousiana's Sugar Cane country, and a cold case involving a slave gone missing more than one hundred years earlier. Black Water Rising was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an Edgar(R) Award, and an NAACP Image Award, and was short-listed for the Orange Prize in the U.K.

From the Back Cover

From Attica Locke, a writer and producer of FOX's Empire:

"The Cutting Season is a rare murder mystery with heft, a historical novel that thrills, a page-turner that makes you think. Attica Locke is a dazzling writer with a conscience."--Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Times bestselling author of Wench

After her breathtaking debut novel, Black Water Rising, won acclaim from major publications and respected crime fiction masters like James Ellroy and George Pelecanos, Locke returns with The Cutting Season, a second novel easily as gripping and powerful as her first--a heart-pounding thriller that interweaves two murder mysteries, one on Belle Vie, a historic landmark in the middle of Lousiana's Sugar Cane country, and one involving a slave gone missing more than one hundred years earlier. Black Water Rising was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an Edgar(R) Award, and an NAACP Image Award, and was short-listed for the Orange Prize in the U.K.

Review Quotes

"Superb. . . . Inventive. . . . Insightful." - Florida Sun-Sentinel

"The impressively astute Attica Locke writes . . . in much the same way that Mr. Lehane [does]. . . . Each is willing to use the murder mystery as a framework for much more ambitious, atmospheric fiction." - New York Times

"A thoughtful, well-written and absorbing read with a surprising ending." - Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Although The Cutting Season succeeds as a thriller, above all it is a well-crafted warning about the damage wrought--generational, social, romantic--when the past is distorted or denied." - Financial Times

"I was first struck by Attica Locke's prose, then by the ingenuity of her narrative and finally and most deeply by the depth of her humanity. She writes with equal amounts grace and passion. . . . I'd probably read the phone book if her name was on the spine." - Dennis Lehane

"[A] haunting mystery, where the murder of a migrant worker brings past and present into hair's-breadth proximity. " - People

"Locke's [The Cutting Season] is written with fluidity and elegance, evoking the uniqueness of her setting and the nuances in the relationships of her characters, complicated by race, class, and history." - Kirkus Reviews

"[An] atmospheric . . . nuanced look at the South's tragic past and one strong woman's stand against ingrained cultural and economic oppression." - Booklist

"Compelling. . . . A mystery that expands the whole idea of the mystery, reaching from the present deeply into the past. . . . Great writing, the kind that gives you goose bumps." - Los Angeles Times

"More than a whodunit. While keeping the pace of a thriller, Ms. Locke blends Louisiana's past with its present, tackling race, self-identity and corporate corruption. Ms. Locke's prose revels in the sumptuous Louisiana landscape but also swoops and jumps as the story unravels." - The Economist

"Dripping with southern Gothic atmosphere. . . . Equal parts murder mystery and family drama, the novel also draws readers in through its considerations of African-American history and life in post-Katrina Louisiana." - USA Today

"One of the most engaging and gifted new voices in the genre. . . . The Cutting Season does more than exhume a body--it rattles the bones of slavery, race, class, and power to examine a crime that reverberates from more than a century ago." - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The Cutting Season is a novel about the shifting definitions of family, the persistent pull of history, the sterling promise of home, and the stunning power of love. It pulled me in and held me close to the very last page." - Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow

"A layered, nuanced mystery with a social conscience. Weaving legal, social, historical, and economic elements into the story of a changing family, it's a good choice for readers who enjoy multifaceted mysteries." - Library Journal

"The Cutting Season is a rare murder mystery with heft, a historical novel that thrills, a page-turner that makes you think. Attica Locke is a dazzling writer with a conscience." - Dolen Perkins-Valdez, New York Times bestselling author of Wench

"Absorbing. . . . As she managed to do so well in her first novel, Black Water Rising, Locke draws on the past to remind her characters how much it has shaped their identities and how much it continues to shape the choices they make." - New York Times Book Review