Anna Bailey’s sophomore novel, Our Last Wild Days, emerges from the humid, moss-draped waters of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin like a fever dream wrapped in Spanish moss. Following her acclaimed debut Where the Truth Lies, Bailey trades the stark mountain landscapes of Colorado for the claustrophobic beauty of the bayou, crafting a murder mystery that feels as ancient and primordial as the alligators lurking beneath its surface.
The novel opens with a visceral punch: “A girl bursts out of the woods.” This breathless, immediate plunge into danger sets the tone for a story that never quite lets readers catch their breath, much like the oppressive Louisiana heat that seems to press down on every page.
The Labasque Legacy: Outcasts in Their Own Home
The heart of Bailey’s narrative centers on the Labasque family—Cutter, Dewall, and Beau—who live as modern-day outcasts on a ramshackle alligator farm deep in the swamp. Bailey paints them with the kind of sympathetic complexity that elevates genre fiction into something more profound. These aren’t merely backwoods stereotypes; they’re fully realized characters carrying generations of trauma, poverty, and isolation.
When Cutter Labasque is found dead in the murky waters of Blair Road cutoff, the official verdict of suicide sits uneasily with her childhood friend, Loyal May. Loyal’s return to Jacknife after a decade in Houston isn’t just a homecoming—it’s a reckoning with the article she wrote as a teenager that branded the Labasques as dangerous outcasts, effectively sealing Cutter’s fate in the court of public opinion.
The weight of this betrayal infuses every interaction between Loyal and the surviving Labasque brothers. Bailey expertly navigates the delicate terrain of guilt, redemption, and the impossibility of undoing past harm. Loyal’s investigation becomes less about solving a murder and more about excavating the truth of her own complicity in her friend’s marginalization.
Atmospheric Excellence: The Bayou as Character
Bailey’s greatest strength lies in her ability to make the Louisiana landscape feel like a living, breathing entity. The swampland isn’t merely a backdrop—it’s a character in its own right, one that shapes every human interaction within its boundaries. The author’s prose drips with the humidity and decay of the bayou:
“The evening air has a thickness to it, as though someone has left an oven open nearby. Either side of the road, Spanish moss stirs in the boughs of the knock-kneed cypresses and shadows are gathering between an old duck-hunter’s cabin and the timbers of an upturned fishing boat.”
This atmospheric density serves multiple purposes. It creates an immediate sense of place that grounds readers in the specific culture and geography of rural Louisiana, while simultaneously building the claustrophobic tension that drives the mystery forward. The oppressive heat, the labyrinthine waterways, and the ever-present danger of alligators create a world where secrets fester and violence feels inevitable.
Character Development: Flawed Heroes and Complex Villains
Loyal May: The Journalist’s Burden
Loyal May emerges as a compellingly flawed protagonist whose professional skills as a journalist both help and hinder her personal quest for redemption. Bailey avoids the trap of making Loyal too sympathetic; her past cruelty toward the Labasques feels genuinely painful, and her current investigation is tainted by self-interest as much as genuine concern for justice.
The author particularly excels in depicting Loyal’s relationship with her mother, whose early-onset dementia adds another layer of loss and helplessness to an already emotionally charged narrative. These scenes provide some of the novel’s most tender moments, grounding the larger mystery in intimate human struggles.
The Labasque Brothers: Portraits of Masculinity Under Pressure
Dewall and Beau Labasque represent different responses to systemic marginalization and family trauma. Dewall’s controlled violence and Beau’s self-destructive addiction feel like natural consequences of their circumstances rather than plot conveniences. Bailey’s portrayal of their grief over Cutter’s death—particularly Beau’s breakdown at the funeral—carries genuine emotional weight.
The author’s handling of Dewall’s relationship with Sasha Petitpas deserves particular praise. In a genre often lacking in LGBTQ+ representation, Bailey crafts a tender, complicated romance that feels organic to the story while avoiding both exploitation and sanitization.
Mystery and Pacing: Where the Plot Occasionally Stumbles
While Bailey’s atmospheric writing and character development are consistently strong, the mystery plot occasionally feels secondary to the novel’s other concerns. The revelation of Sheriff Don Broussard as Cutter’s killer, while thematically appropriate, doesn’t carry the same emotional punch as the interpersonal dynamics between the main characters.
The investigation itself follows a somewhat predictable pattern, with Loyal and her colleagues at the Bayou Leader uncovering corruption that implicates local law enforcement. The various red herrings—the faith healer’s son Isiah Black, the mysterious figures in animal masks, the drug-running subplot—sometimes feel like distractions from the more compelling personal story at the novel’s core.
However, Bailey redeems these structural weaknesses with her commitment to authentic character motivation. Every revelation feels true to the people involved, even when the plot mechanics creak slightly.
Social Commentary: Power, Poverty, and Environmental Destruction
Beneath its murder mystery surface, Our Last Wild Days offers sharp commentary on the intersection of poverty, environmental destruction, and social marginalization in rural America. The Labasques’ status as outcasts isn’t just personal—it’s systemic, rooted in class differences and economic desperation that make them vulnerable to exploitation by both criminals and law enforcement.
Bailey’s depiction of the corrupt relationship between Sheriff Broussard and various criminal elements feels particularly relevant in our current moment of questioning police accountability. The author avoids heavy-handed messaging, instead letting the social critique emerge naturally from the story’s events.
The environmental themes woven throughout—pollution from the plastics plant, the changing ecosystem, the commercialization of traditional hunting practices—add depth without overwhelming the narrative. Bailey understands that environmental and social justice issues are inseparable in communities like Jacknife.
Writing Style: Southern Gothic Meets Contemporary Crime
Bailey’s prose style in Our Last Wild Days successfully marries the languid, descriptive tradition of Southern Gothic literature with the propulsive pace of contemporary crime fiction. Her sentences often unfurl like the Spanish moss that decorates her landscape—beautiful, atmospheric, and slightly ominous.
The author demonstrates particular skill in writing dialogue that captures the rhythms of Louisiana speech without falling into caricature. Each character has a distinct voice that feels authentic to their background and circumstances.
Some readers may find Bailey’s pacing occasionally uneven, with atmospheric passages sometimes slowing the mystery’s momentum. However, these moments of reflection serve important purposes in developing character and theme, even when they test reader patience.
Comparative Context: Building on a Strong Foundation
Our Last Wild Days represents a significant evolution from Bailey’s debut Where the Truth Lies. While both novels deal with small-town secrets and the weight of the past, this second effort shows greater confidence in handling multiple narrative threads and complex social issues.
Readers familiar with authors like Tana French, Megan Abbott, or Laura McHugh will find similar concerns with how past traumas shape present realities. However, Bailey’s specific focus on environmental and economic marginalization gives her work a distinctive voice within the crowded field of rural crime fiction.
The novel also shares DNA with classic Southern Gothic works like those of Flannery O’Connor or more contemporary voices like Jess Walter, particularly in its treatment of characters who exist on society’s margins.
Final Verdict: A Worthy Follow-up with Room for Growth
Our Last Wild Days succeeds admirably as both a standalone mystery and a continuation of Bailey’s exploration of America’s forgotten communities. The novel’s greatest strengths—its atmospheric writing, complex characterization, and authentic social commentary—far outweigh its occasional structural weaknesses.
Bailey has crafted a story that respects both its characters and its readers, refusing to provide easy answers to complicated questions about guilt, redemption, and the possibility of meaningful change in damaged communities. While the mystery plot may not always satisfy genre purists, the emotional journey of Loyal May’s attempt to make amends for past cruelties provides the novel’s true substance.
For readers seeking atmospheric crime fiction that grapples seriously with social issues, Our Last Wild Days offers a compelling entry point into Bailey’s evolving body of work. It’s a novel that lingers in memory like the humid Louisiana air—uncomfortable but impossible to forget.
Our Last Wild Days confirms Anna Bailey as a writer worth watching, one who understands that the best mysteries aren’t just about who committed the crime, but about the social conditions that make such crimes feel inevitable. In the end, like the alligators that prowl its waters, this novel proves that sometimes the most dangerous predators are the ones that have learned to wait patiently in the shadows.
