” Nothing frightens me more than the faith in my daughter’s eyes. How many men deserve that kind of trust? One by one, the mentors I’ve most admired eventually revealed their facades, and tired feet of clay-or worse. But not my father.”

And with that, we, like our protagonist Penn Cage. the mayor of Natchez, are drawn into the story of what happened in Mississippi in the 1960’s and particularly to Penn’s father, Dr. Tom Cage. The past would not have come back to haunt, Penn or his father if Viola Turner, Dr. Tom’s beautiful nurse, had not returned to Natchez to die, but she did.  But the circumstances of her death seem suspicious and soon his father, a much loved pillar of the community is under investigation for murder.  Dr. Cage, however, refuses to talk about Viola or what happened the night she died, citing patient-doctor confidentiality, and Penn is at a loss on how to defend his aging father.

Meanwhile Henry Sexton, a journalist for the local Natchez paper has been investigating several unsolved murders of young black men that occurred in the 1960’s, and has uncovered a group called the DD’s who operated outside the local KKK structure and seem to be responsible for these murders as well as other evils.  The stories he published in the newspaper thus far are generating interest-both good and bad, but Henry is feeling the pressure to reveal the identity of the remaining living members of the DD’s who have now risen to prominence, wealth and power in Natchez.  Henry is sure that Viola’s death is somehow connected to the stories that he has been publishing, and although he warns Penn, even he is unprepared for the violence that is unleashed.

This is my first book by Greg Iles and I am kicking myself for not reading him sooner!  This is the first volume of a trilogy, but he has also written other novels with Penn Cage as his protagonist, which I plan to read while waiting for the next instalment.  He is a great writer-a southern Scott Turow, if you will, who knows the cadence and language of his characters, has a keen sense of justice, understands the nuances of motivation and the complications of their relationships but most of all, he understands that evil is not just a biblical term but is most often revealed in people who have lost any sense of being held accountable for their actions.  Although this is a story of today, Iles thoroughly grounds it in the Civil Rights era in “[a] place most people in the United States liked to think was somehow different from the rest of the country, but which was in fact the very incarnation of America’s tortured soul.  Mississippi.”

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Stars out of 5)  

Recommend this book to: Keith, Ken, Sharon, Marian

Book Study Worthy? Yes

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