Greg Iles

"Natchez Burning" is the first volume of novelist Greg Iles Natchez trilogy and the fourth featuring the character Penn Cage. It is a modern masterpiece in the tradition of the Southern Gothic, summoning literary revenants of William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren while creating a vivid and fast paced stream of action and imagery equal to today's around the clock news frenzy.

If you are a fan of James Lee Burke, you will love the work of Greg Iles. Burke, a son of the bayou country southwest of New Orleans, has given the world the Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux, a man of honor prone to melancholy and uncertain of his own moral authority. Iles has created a literary cousin to Robicheaux, Penn Cage, mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, novelist, attorney, former assistant DA in Harris County, Texas (Houston). Mayor Cage is a man of honor caught in a world of moral ambiguity, a world that in "Natchez Burning" descends into unambiguous evil.

The novel begins in 1964 with the creation of a white supremacist terrorist group calling itself the Double Eagles, a half dozen Klansmen for whom the Klan is not sufficiently effective in its murderous violence. These are the most brutal, sadistic and cunning killers in the Jim Crow South.

The story jumps forward to the autumn of 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The old Double Eagles, and their progeny, are still active and a new generation of corrupt and racist men has taken control of politics and business in Louisiana and Mississippi. Penn Cage. his father Dr. Tom Cage (framed for murder and on the run from the law), local journalists, including the mayor's wife, and a few honest cops are pitted against the forces of evil in a deadly, complex struggle. The story draws in the FBI and possible evidence leading to a Mafia connection to the JFK assassination. After much carnage, the story continues in the next book, "The Bone Tree".… (more)

A featured tagline on the front of this paperback book is as follows
'AMAZING I defy you to put it down' STEPHEN KING, well frankly who am I to argue or disagree with a Master Storyteller such as he.
Totally gripping from first to last page, superb characters plenty of surprises and twists. The only slight disappointment is a somewhat open ending, but presumably this will be picked up in the next book which sits in my To Be Read pile, but will probably be moved up some after this. The fourth book in this series and there are references to previous stories, but could be read standalone.
Be warned some graphic gruesome violence scenes.
Completely and utterly recommended.… (more)