AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: Natchez Burning (Penn Cage #4) by Greg Iles

 

Publication Date: April 29, 2014 Format: Audio Genre:  Legal Thriller Narrators: David Ledoux

Publisher: Harper Audio Length: 35 hours 51 min Buy: Kindle | Audio

Synopsis

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes the first novel in his Natchez Burning trilogy—which also includes The Bone TreeMississippi Blood—an epic trilogy that interweaves crimes, lies, and secrets past and present in a mesmerizing thriller featuring Southern lawyer and former prosecutor Penn Cage. 

Raised in the southern splendor of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows of duty from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor has been accused of murdering the African American nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the 1960s. Once a crusading prosecutor, Penn is determined to save his father, but Tom, stubbornly invoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses even to speak in his own defense.

Penn's quest for the truth sends him deep into his father's past, where a sexually charged secret lies. More chilling, this long-buried sin is only one thread in a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the most powerful men in the state. Aided by a dedicated reporter privy to Natchez's oldest secrets and by his fiancée, Caitlin Masters, Penn uncovers a trail of corruption and brutality that places his family squarely in the Double Eagles' crosshairs.

With every step costing blood and faith, Penn is forced to confront the most wrenching dilemma of his life: Does a man of honor choose his father or the truth?

Review:  

This is a long and very complicated book.  It begins back in the 1960's when Dr. Tom Cage was a new doctor who falls for his black nurse despite being married. In the Deep South the KKK rules but a new branch known as the Double Eagles is more brutal and more powerful than the KKK and they commit atrocities that reverberate into the present.  Now Dr. Tom Cage is being charged with the murder of his ex-nurse who came back to Natchez to die.  But before anyone knows it Dr. Cage disappears and the FBI gets involved.  

If you can keep up this has to be one of the most intriguing and terrifying book.  I love the narrator who keeps you engaged as you slowly uncover why Dr. Cage may have run, what and who is the driving force behind charging him with murder. There are conspiracies and murders that date back to the 1960's and an ambitious reporter who has been pulling at threads that maybe shouldn't have been pulled.  

I've read a lot of complicated murder mysteries and this is one of the most epic. You become invested in the case, the people and the intrigue.  As corruption is uncovered it keeps leading down further and further into a void that is terrifying and dangerous. The next book is probably even larger and longer and I can't wait to get my hands on it.  The only reason I'm not rounding this up to five stars is due to how utterly confused I was in the beginning as this was all being set up.  I'm not sure if the paper book is easier to catch hold of but I was a little lost for a few hours until things started to fall into place. 

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