Our Last Wild Days

by Anna Bailey · 2025

When Loyal May returns to the swamp‑bound town of Jacknife, Louisiana, she hopes to care for her ailing mother and put the past behind her. But days after her arrival her childhood friend Cutter Labasque is found dead, face‑down in the murky bayou. The police call it a drowning, yet Loyal knows Cutter’s intimate knowledge of the water and suspects foul play. Teaming up with a rag‑tag crew from the local newspaper, she plunges into the tangled lives of the Labasque family—outcast alligator hunters shunned by the community—and uncovers a web of deceit, corruption, and old betrayals that threaten to swallow the whole town. As the swamp’s secrets rise, Loyal must confront the guilt of her own abandonment and decide whether redemption is possible before the truth is lost forever.