AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: The Turning Angel ( Penn Cage #2) by Greg Iles

 

Publication Date: July 1, 2008 Format: Audio Genre:  Legal Thriller Narrators: Dick Hill

Publisher: Brilliance Audio  Length: 17 hours 37 min Buy: Kindle | Audio

Synopsis

As two of the most prominent citizens of Natchez, Drew and Penn sit on the school board of their alma mater, St. Stephen's Prep. When the nude body of a young female student is found near the Mississippi River, the entire community is shocked - but no one more than Penn, who discovers that his best friend was entangled in a passionate relationship with the girl and may be accused of her murder.

On the surface, Kate Townsend seems the most unlikely murder victim imaginable. A star student and athlete, she'd been accepted to Harvard and carried the hope and pride of the town on her shoulders. But like her school and her town, Kate also had a secret life - one about which her adult lover knew little.

When Drew begs Penn to defend him, Penn allows his sense of obligation to override his instinct and agrees. Yet before he can begin, both men are drawn into a dangerous web of blackmail and violence. Penn finds himself doubting his friend's motives and searching for a path out of harm's way.

More dangerous yet is Shad Johnson, the black district attorney whose dream is to send a rich white man to death row in Mississippi. At Shad's order, Drew is jailed, the police cease hunting Kate's killer, and Penn realizes that only by finding Kate's murderer himself can he save his friend's life.

With his daughter's babysitter as his guide, Penn penetrates the secret world of St. Stephen's, a place that parents never see, where reality veers so radically from appearance that Penn risks losing his own moral compass. St. Stephen's is a dark mirror of the adult world, one populated by steroid-crazed jocks, girls desperate for attention, and jaded teens flirting with nihilism. And hidden among them all is one true psychopath.

Review:

I found this book on Scribd.   

The 2nd book in this series delivers even more intrigue and mystery.  Penn Cage is caught in a moral dilemma. He is disgusted by his best friends affair with a young high school student but he is also sure that he didn't kill her. But things don't look good for his friend and the politics is stacked against him. 

An ambitious prosecutor with his eyes set on the Mayors office and beyond need the black vote and he knows the best way to secure that is to convict a rich white man in the murder of the town's high school poster child. He conspires with law enforcement and judges to sway things in his favor. 

Meanwhile Penn is struggling to find whoever else could be responsible, what he finds is a thriving drug business on a scale that he is surprised by, a new appreciation of modern high school students, and a bleak vision of the future for his small town.  With businesses leaving there is nothing to keep the young people in Nachez, which leads him to thinking of ways to revitalize the town as he starts leaning toward that mayors office himself. 

This was a great read, well written, with moral questions and the reality of many small towns in America. 

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