Natchez Burning

Synopsis

In the tradition of The Quiet Game and Turning Angel comes Unwritten Laws, the new Penn Cage novel by Greg Iles, and a stunning sequel to the best-selling The Devil’s Punchbowl.

This is classic Greg Iles territory, where the South’s past and present lie eternally entangled; where the sins of the father pass unerringly from generation to generation; and where a murder from yesteryear finds new life – and victims – in the present.

In Unwritten Laws Penn Cage faces a son’s worst nightmare – having his father stand accused of murder. Worse, each effort to defend the legendary Dr. Tom Cage unearths new, shocking secrets, leaving Penn to question whether he ever really knew his father at all.

At issue is the murder of Viola Turner, once Tom Cage’s nurse, long a woman transplanted to Chicago, now back in Natchez and a corpse in her sister’s house.

Penn’s old nemesis, district attorney Shad Johnson, is quick to point the finger at Tom Cage, citing Tom’s decades-old relationship with his ex-nurse. Penn and Caitlin leap to Tom’s defense, but are shocked when Tom Cage refuses to speak on the matter, even to defend himself.

Tom is taken into custody, leaving Penn and Caitlin alone to explore the dangerous territory of Tom Cage and Viola Turner’s shared history, set squarely in the most harrowing years of civil-rights-era Mississippi.

What was the relationship between Tom, Viola, and the “Double Eagle Club,” an ultra-violent group of hardened men who considered themselves smarter, tougher, and more elite than their peers in the FBI-infiltrated Ku Klux Klan?

In Natchez, where the past is never truly “past,” long-buried secrets tend to turn lethal when exposed to the light of day. For Penn Cage, the cost of solving this case will be no exception. Confronted not only by the still living remaining members of the Double-Eagle Club, but their much more dangerous sons, Penn Cage and his girl friend Caitlin will be in more danger than ever before. By the end of Volume One, Penn Cage’s world will be torn apart.