This is the story of Jack Branch, a high school teacher currently teaching a class on evil. When he finds out one of his students is the son of the locally infamous Coed Killer, he decides to take the student under his wing. Jack gives an assignment to the class to write a term paper on someone who is evil, and suggests to Eddie that he write about his own father.

Although the storyline was good and carried me along, I had one big problem with the ending: Why did the trial cover so much of Jack's mentoring of Eddie and his term paper? It didn't end up having much at all to do with the actual crimes committed. The entire book which was about this term paper, and Eddie's father, and hints of a secret between Eddie and Jack's father, only to have it all come to absolutely nothing. And I never did figure out if Jack's father was telling the truth about the story of Pip in "The Book of Days" or not. Good storytelling, great characterization, but in the end didn't make much sense. ( )

Master of the Delta is the first of Thomas H. Cook's novels that I have read. I loved this book, and the beautiful writing style. The novel is about Jack Branch, a local teacher and lifelong resident of the Delta. Mr. Branch begins to mentor one of his students, Eddie, who wants to learn more about his father, "The Coed Killer." In a small town, Eddie never can get away from the shadow of what his father did decades earlier. This story narrated by Mr. Branch, mostly through flashbacks. The foreshadowing is wonderfully done, and made this book a page turner, for me. I'm looking forward to more of Mr. Cook's works. ( )

In Master of the Delta Cook sticks with his traditional formula of a key character narrating decades old events that shaped the inhabitants of a small southern town. He is a skillful author whose hints and innuendo keep the reader turning pages.
In this book Jack Branch, a high school teacher from an aristocratic family, mentors a solitary and underprivileged student who has chosen to write a term paper about his murderous father. Jack’s motives are not entirely altruistic. Rather, Jack wants to take credit for lifting the boy from social isolation due to his past.
Lines are drawn early between the good and the bad characters. And then, like drops from a broken faucet, the details of an incident emerge. With the turn of a phrase or an account of court testimony, the narrator plants a seed of doubt about who is good and who is bad. The reader starts wondering, or maybe trying to guess at what might have happened. Clearly, not all is as it seems. Not until the final pages does the narrator reveal the full scope of a tragedy with heartbreaking consequences.

Available at my blog: http://www.thelitwitch.com/?p=85 ( )

Publishers have obviously waited until near the end of the year to unleash their latest batch of titles on hungry thriller fans – in good time to whet the appetites of readers who will soon be receiving their Christmas bonus.

The four titles I have read this month are of a generally high standard: Cook’s Master of the Delta is a literary novel set in a small town in the Deep South. Jack Branch, scion of an old aristocratic family, is a dedicated teacher who is fascinated by a boy in his class, Eddie Miller, son of the notorious ‘Coed Killer’.

He mentors Eddie, with disastrous consequences: tortured minds not physical torture, violent emotions not violent actions and bathos not bullets lend this book its unique edge… ( )