The Quiet Game by Greg Iles

The Quiet Game is the first of the Penn Cage novels by Greg Iles, and I’ve already reviewed the third book (The Devil’s Punchbowl) in this six-book series. I thought The Devil’s Punchbowl was good enough that I should start at the beginning, and I was not disappointed. This one was a KNOCK-ME-OUT-OF-MY-SOCKS story. We meet Penn Cage who has made the transition from successful prosecutor to famous crime novel author. As a prosecutor, he had sent 16 men to death row and he had watched seven of them die. But, he’s still recovering from the death of his wife from cancer and he and his daughter both need the TLC of home, so Penn goes returns to his parent’s house in Natchez, Mississippi.

Over the phone, as he was planning his trip home, Penn sensed that something was troubling his father, a successful and beloved physician of both blacks and white in the still racially charged of Natchez. As Penn dives into the events surrounding his father’s troubles, the reader is led back to a racial murder that took place in 1968, and it occurred between the times of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. The crime was never solved and the black families were sure there was a cover up of the crime. Racism remains a dominant theme in Mississippi live 40 years later. All of the principals of that crime are either still in Natchez or have returned there, and some have gone on to high and powerful political office. Del Payton was the man who was murdered and seemingly forgotten by the white community, but why would J. Edgar Hoover have sealed the files of the case, allegedly as a matter of national security. How is Judge Leo Marston involved in this, the father of Penn’s high school sweetheart, a power broker in Mississippi, and the arch and bitter rival of Penn’s father.

After only two books, I can’t officially move Greg Iles into my power rotation, but I’m guessing he will be placed there as soon as I complete his next novel. That rotation includes Daniel Silva, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Ken Bruen, Lee Child, Louise Penny, Robert Crais, Stephen Hunter, C.J. Box, and Vince Flynn. That list leaves out some other great writers. If I stop at 10 authors, who could possibly get dropped from my list to make room for Iles who probably belongs in the company of those others? I plan to read the second book in the series, Turning Point. In The Quiet Game, the plot is intricate, but not too convoluted. I was kept in suspense until the end. At least in this book, he is one of the best writers of dialogue that I’ve encountered. His character development is as skilled as any author I’ve read, and the courtroom drama is as good as anything that Grisham has written.