Free Audio Book : The Cutting Season, By Attica Locke

Caren Gray oversees Belle Vie, an expansive antebellum plantation nestled between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where history and the present uncomfortably coexist. The property’s proprietors have transformed the estate into a haunting tourist destination, replete with full-costume re-enactments and meticulously preserved slave quarters. Beyond the gates, an ambitious corporation has been aggressively acquiring land from families who have cultivated sugar cane for generations, now supplanting local workers with undocumented laborers. Strains escalate when the corpse of a female migrant worker is discovered in a shallow grave at the property’s edge, her throat cleanly slit.

As the inquiry commences, the roster of suspects expands. However, when new evidence emerges and the sheriff’s department focuses on a suspect, Caren harbors a nagging suspicion that the police are pursuing incorrect leads. Risking her own safety, she delves into perilous territory as she uncovers shocking new details about an ancient enigma - the long-past vanishing of a former slave - that has disturbing connections to the current homicide. In her quest for the truth about Belle Vie’s past and her own, Caren uncovers secrets about both cases - secrets that an increasingly frantic murderer will go to any lengths to conceal.