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sssnoo's review against another edition
Well, it only took me one hour of listening to realize this book wasn’t for me.
- Macho man protagonist who likes to stare through women’s blouses (seriously what newspaper reporter wears shear blouses with nothing on underneath to work?).
- Actually explains that black people smell different? WTF!?
- I just felt tired thinking about slogging through a 20 hour audiobook.
I’m was excited at first because I’ve been to Natchez and I love reading books set in locales I’ve travelled. But this book didn’t age well. The amount of cringing I did in one hour? DNF.
- Macho man protagonist who likes to stare through women’s blouses (seriously what newspaper reporter wears shear blouses with nothing on underneath to work?).
- Actually explains that black people smell different? WTF!?
- I just felt tired thinking about slogging through a 20 hour audiobook.
I’m was excited at first because I’ve been to Natchez and I love reading books set in locales I’ve travelled. But this book didn’t age well. The amount of cringing I did in one hour? DNF.
gretel7's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
2.0
The mix between 1990's racial tensions and local Mississippi politics was not for me. 2☆
protoman21's review against another edition
3.0
A book that definitely takes its time. I enjoyed the characters, but I guess the pace was slow for me. And somehow seeing the way the pieces fit together at the end, I kinda felt like big deal. Most likely because it took so long to get there.
hinesight's review
2.0
I confess to a prejudice against white authors using deep south black dialect for black characters. I know it is illogical, but there you go. That said, I enjoyed this book enough to move on to the next book in the series. Plus, he's in “The Rock Bottom Remainders," so he has to be good, right?
book_concierge's review against another edition
3.0
Following his wife’s death, Penn Cage returns to his parental home in Natchez so that he and his little girl, Annie, can begin to heal. He’s been a successful prosecuting attorney in Houston for several years, and is also a best-selling author, so his arrival in town has reporters calling for interviews. He agrees and mentions a never-solved, decades-old, civil-rights murder in the course of their meeting. That mention fans the flames of racial unrest, and a sinister conspiracy of power mongers in both Mississippi and Washington D.C.
This is a fast-paced mystery thriller with more than its share of action and violence. Threats are hurled about at every turn, bombs are set off, high-powered weapons employed, and people are killed; the body count is HIGH. There are two additional, somewhat related, storylines as well – Cage’s father is being blackmailed, and the brother of a man Cage sent to the death chamber has vowed revenge.
Iles kept the tension high and kept me turning pages, but I felt the entire conspiracy was way too convoluted and unnecessarily complicated. The two side stories added little to the main plot; they mostly just padded the page count. There are disturbing (to me, at least) lapses in judgment and lack of integrity shown by Penn Cage, who is described frequently as morally upright. He commits more than one felony, justifying his actions by his moral outrage and desire to defend his family (and/or protect someone he loves). Really? This kind of character flaw is hard for me to overlook.
I’ll give Iles credit though for writing some of the “best” smarmy, oily, power-hungry villains to be found between book covers. I wanted to strangle them myself and almost all of them got what they deserved.
This is a fast-paced mystery thriller with more than its share of action and violence. Threats are hurled about at every turn, bombs are set off, high-powered weapons employed, and people are killed; the body count is HIGH. There are two additional, somewhat related, storylines as well – Cage’s father is being blackmailed, and the brother of a man Cage sent to the death chamber has vowed revenge.
Iles kept the tension high and kept me turning pages, but I felt the entire conspiracy was way too convoluted and unnecessarily complicated. The two side stories added little to the main plot; they mostly just padded the page count. There are disturbing (to me, at least) lapses in judgment and lack of integrity shown by Penn Cage, who is described frequently as morally upright. He commits more than one felony, justifying his actions by his moral outrage and desire to defend his family (and/or protect someone he loves). Really? This kind of character flaw is hard for me to overlook.
I’ll give Iles credit though for writing some of the “best” smarmy, oily, power-hungry villains to be found between book covers. I wanted to strangle them myself and almost all of them got what they deserved.
jennrid's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Fire/Fire injury, Rape, Gun violence, Hate crime, Murder, and Racism
lulo49's review against another edition
4.0
Listened to on Audible. I like the narrator and enjoyed the performance and the story.
nigellicus's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
5.0
Slightly steamy southern thriller about a decades-old murder that's also a family drama set in a town full of secrets and corruption, steeped in racism (and resentment at being seen as corrupt and racist by the surely just as corrupt and racist North) and pretty darn miffed at having the past dug up. It's entertaining stuff. The narrator/hero, a legal paragon and bestselling popular author no less, is full of himself, but gets cut down a peg or two often enough to keep him likeable.
It's all solidly entertaining and enthralling, and moves along at an amazing pace after the more stately opening. When people aren't shooting at him, they're warning him or waylaying him or setting his house on fore or iinexplicably trying to kindle a long-dead romance that left scars while the plot twists and turns and ploughs irrevocably to what you know from early on is going to be a climactic courtroom battle. It's smart, which is something I've really come to apreciate over a lot of other qualities in the books I enjoy, and well written.
Published in 1999, some of the way it treats race raises eyebrows because critiques of well-worn tropes have penetrated much further now than they had then. But I think it plays fair and wears its heart on its sleeve. Oh, it also does that thing where every woman's relative attractiveness is detailed and catalogued and assessed, but as characters they're as well drawn as the men.
It's all solidly entertaining and enthralling, and moves along at an amazing pace after the more stately opening. When people aren't shooting at him, they're warning him or waylaying him or setting his house on fore or iinexplicably trying to kindle a long-dead romance that left scars while the plot twists and turns and ploughs irrevocably to what you know from early on is going to be a climactic courtroom battle. It's smart, which is something I've really come to apreciate over a lot of other qualities in the books I enjoy, and well written.
Published in 1999, some of the way it treats race raises eyebrows because critiques of well-worn tropes have penetrated much further now than they had then. But I think it plays fair and wears its heart on its sleeve. Oh, it also does that thing where every woman's relative attractiveness is detailed and catalogued and assessed, but as characters they're as well drawn as the men.