The Cutting Season - Hardcover

""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"

""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

"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

"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

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

"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

"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

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

When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate's manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie's history, which leads her to a centuries old mystery involving the plantation's slave quarters--and her own past. 50,000 first printing.