Penn Cage is no stranger to death. As a Houston prosecutor he sent sixteen men to death row, and watched seven of them die. But now, in the aftermath of his wife's death, the grief-stricken father packs up his four-year-old daughter, Annie, and returns to his hometown in search of healing. But peace is not what he finds there. Natchez, Mississippi, is the jewel of the antebellum South, a city of old money and older sins, where passion, power, and racial tensions seethe beneath its elegant fa�ade. After twenty years away, ...
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Penn Cage is no stranger to death. As a Houston prosecutor he sent sixteen men to death row, and watched seven of them die. But now, in the aftermath of his wife's death, the grief-stricken father packs up his four-year-old daughter, Annie, and returns to his hometown in search of healing. But peace is not what he finds there. Natchez, Mississippi, is the jewel of the antebellum South, a city of old money and older sins, where passion, power, and racial tensions seethe beneath its elegant fa�ade. After twenty years away, Penn is stunned to find his own family trapped in a web of intrigue and danger. Determined to save his father from a ruthless blackmailer, Penn stumbles over a link to the town's darkest secret: the thirty-year-old unsolved murder of a black Korean War veteran. But what drives him to act is the revelation that this haunting mystery is inextricably bound up in his own past. Under a blaze of national media attention, Penn reopens the case, only to find local records destroyed, the FBI file sealed, and the town closing ranks against him. Penn joins forces with Caitlin Masters, a beautiful young newspaper publisher, on a quest that will lead from the bayous of the South to the highest reaches of the U.S. government. His need to right a terrible wrong pits him against the FBI, the powerful judge who nearly destoyed his family, and his most dangerous adversary: a woman he loved more than twenty years before, and who haunts him still. His crusade for justice will ultimately lead him into a packed Mississippi courtroom, where he fights a battle that could end a decades-old silence and force the truth to be spoken at last.
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Suspence until the very end. Throughly enjoyed it from the start to finish.
Leezit
Nov 13, 2008
WOW
This author has a knack of keeping you up late at night.....you just cannot put this book away. Mr. Iles makes reading his books like watching a movie.
RedAdept
Sep 29, 2008
Good Read
Greg Iles has done it again with what is both a novel of revenge, romance, intrigue, and courtroom drama.
I live in the south and found his views on Southerner's and the way they treated black people both long ago and still today extremely relevant. I loved the main character's viewpoint on why so many people think that black people have thrown away all opportunities 'handed' to them.
This book handles racism in an unbiased manner. There are good white & black guys as well as bad white & black guys in the book.
The story is based around a 30 year old murder of a black civil rights activist. Everyone assumes that it was racially based, which is also indicative of our racist views that still exist today.
At risk to himself and his family, Penn Cage, attorney and author, sets out to solve the murder. But, he has an agenda of his own.
Greg Iles could definitely give Grisham a run for his money.
DianeinAtlanta
Aug 14, 2008
Thriller with serious comments on our times...
Greg Iles as usual manages to keep the reader in suspense for more than two thirds of this book - no small feat for a book over 600 pages long. The book keeps your attention focused from start to finish and the characterizations are very well done.
I found the author's commentary on the state of our country's morals and his revelations about the drugs and sex among teenagers in a small town appalling, even though I live in a large metro area. Somehow many of us think that the threat to our moral fiber is restricted to heavily populated urban areas - this book tells us otherwise.
The moral of the story is demonstrates how a person can lose their moral compass for just one moment and devastate their lives and those of others forever.
