Iles is a master of regional literature, though he’s dealing with universals here, one being our endless thirst to right...
A searing tale of racial hatreds and redemption in the modern South, courtesy of Southern storyteller extraordinaire Iles (The Devil’s Punchbowl, 2009, etc.).
Natchez didn’t burn in the Civil War, having surrendered to the Yankees while its neighbors endured scarifying sieges. It burns in Iles’ pages, though, since so many of the issues sounded a century and a half ago have yet to be resolved. Some of Natchez’s more retrograde residents find it difficult to wrap their heads around the idea that men and women of different races might want to spend time together, occasioning, in the opening episode, a “Guadalcanal barbecue,” as one virulent separate-but-unequal proponent puts it. The Double Eagles, an even more violent offshoot of the KKK, has been spreading its murderous idea of justice through the neighborhood for a long time, a fact driven home for attorney/politico Penn Cage when the allegation rises that his own father is somehow implicated in the dark events of 1964—and, as Iles’ slowly unfolding story makes clear, not just of that long-ago time, but in the whispered, hidden things that followed. As Penn investigates, drawing heat, he runs into plenty of tough customers, some with badges, some with swastikas, as well as the uncomfortable fact that his heroic father may indeed have feet of clay. Iles, a longtime resident of Natchez, knows his corner of Mississippi as well as Faulkner and Welty knew theirs, and he sounds true notes that may not be especially meaningful for outsiders—for one thing, that there’s a profound difference between a Creole and a Cajun, and for another, that anyone whose first three names are Nathan Bedford Forrest may not be entirely trustworthy when looking into hate crimes. His story is long in the telling (and with at least two more volumes coming along to complete it), but a patient reader will find that the pages scoot right along without missing a beat.
Iles is a master of regional literature, though he’s dealing with universals here, one being our endless thirst to right wrongs. A memorable, harrowing tale.Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-231107-8
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
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A satisfyingly warped yarn, kissing cousins of Blue Velvet. Readers may be inclined to stay off the Tilt-a-Whirl for a while...
Great. First we have to be afraid of clowns. Now it’s the guy who runs the Ferris wheel.
Yes, clowns are scary, and so are carnies—and if you didn’t have this red light in your mind already, it’s never a good idea to climb (or ride) to great heights during a lightning storm. King (Doctor Sleep, 2013, etc.) turns in a sturdy noir, with just a little of The Shining flickering at the edges, that’s set not in the familiar confines of Maine (though his protagonist is from there) but down along the gloomy coastline of North Carolina, with places bearing such fitting names as Cape Fear and the Graveyard of the Atlantic. His heart newly broken, Devin (Dev, to pals) Jones has taken a summer job at a carnival called Joyland, run by an impossibly old man and haunted by more than a few ghosts. Dev takes a room with crusty Emmalina Shoplaw, “tall, fiftyish, flat-chested, and as pale as a frosted windowpane,” who knows a few secrets. Hell, everyone except Dev knows a few secrets, though no one’s quite put a finger on why so many young women have gone missing around Joyland. Leave it to Dev, an accidental detective, urged along by an eager Lois Lane—well, Erin Cook, anyway. As ever, King writes a lean sentence and a textured story, joining mystery to horror, always with an indignant sense of just how depraved people can be. The story is all the scarier, toward the end, not by the revelation of the bad guy but by his perfectly ordinary desires, even though Joyland is anything but an ordinary place. Even to the last page, though, the body count mounts.
A satisfyingly warped yarn, kissing cousins of Blue Velvet. Readers may be inclined to stay off the Tilt-a-Whirl for a while after diving into these pages.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78116-264-4
Page Count: 283
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
As usual in this white-hot series (Fractured, 2008, etc.), the ongoing psychological warfare and the physical violence that...
A Georgia student’s murder is solved all too quickly and violently—in a way that tears apart her community, fuels the hatred between Det. Lena Adams and former Medical Examiner Sara Linton, and promises still further violence.
If it hadn’t been for the telltale cut on the back of her neck, Allison Spooner’s death would have looked like suicide, complete with motive and farewell note. Shortly after Lena realizes that Allison’s been murdered, a routine search of Allison’s place leads to a sudden, bloody confrontation with a masked intruder that leaves all three officers involved—Lena, Det. Brad Stephens and interim police chief Frank Wallace—wounded. Miraculously, the intruder doesn’t escape. Arrested none too gently, Tommy Braham confesses that he killed Allison because she spurned his advances. But his story, though it conveniently fits the facts of the crime, seems to require a killer who’s both more intelligent and less weepy than him. When Sara, just returned to Heartsdale for a visit, arrives at the jail in response to a mysterious phone call, she finds Tommy dead. Furious at the incompetence of Lena, whom she still holds responsible for her husband’s death (Beyond Reach, 2007), Sara phones the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who send Special Agent Will Trent to determine the question of Tommy’s innocence or guilt—and incidentally to referee the latest round of the long feud between the two women.
As usual in this white-hot series (Fractured, 2008, etc.), the ongoing psychological warfare and the physical violence that punctuates it are far more memorable than the unmasking of the real killer.Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-34197-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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