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A review by book_concierge
The Quiet Game by Greg Iles
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.