Greg Iles (1960–2025)

Cemetery Road by Greg Iles is a compelling, very highly recommended Southern novel of suspense and one of the best novels I've read this year.

"I never meant to kill my brother. I never set out to hate my father. I never dreamed I would bury my own son. Nor could I have imagined that I would betray the childhood friend who saved my life, or win a Pulitzer Prize for telling a lie. All these things I have done, yet most people I know would call me an honorable man." opening

Marshall McEwan has show more returned to his hometown of Bienville, Mississippi, because his father is dying. Marshall swore he'd never return when he left at eighteen, but his mother needs his help. His father is terminally ill, and the 150-year-old family owned newspaper, The Watchman, is struggling. He also knows that his first love, Jet, who is married to his best friend, Paul, will be in Bienville. Marshall begins his story when Buck McKibben, the scoutmaster who was a surrogate father to him after his father ignored him, is murdered.

But Marshall, who is an accomplished investigative journalist, begins to look into the murder and the role that the Poker Club could have played in it. The Poker Club is a group of wealthy good old boy patriarchs who rule the town and control it behind the scenes. They have been running the town as long as The Watchman has been around. Now they have managed to land a deal for a billion-dollar Chinese paper mill to come to town and start an economic upturn for the town. It seems that Buck's death may have been tied to a discovery that would stop that from happening.

"To understand this story, you must swim between two times like a person moving from wakefulness to sleep and then back again." The story requires the disclosure of background information from years ago that affects the present day machinations. The narrative is a tangled tale that includes the death of brothers and sons, friendship, first loves, war, dysfunctional families, secrets, betrayals, corruption, and the power of wealth.

Iles has penned another excellent, engrossing, spellbinding novel that will seize your attention, induce many diverse emotions, and not let up until the ending. I was completely immersed in the narrative from start to finish and the pages flew by as I compulsively read "just one more chapter." This is a long book, but it doesn't feel overly long. The plot is intricate and complicated on several different levels. The setting is well-developed and the characters are fully realized. You may find yourself talking back to Marshall, telling him to use his brain, as he makes some decisions that you (and he) know are mistakes.

The quality of the writing, though, is what sets Iles apart and makes this exceptional novel one of the best I have read this year. It has been awhile since I simply had to save quotes from a novel, and I have pages full of them from Cemetery Road. For those paying attention, there is a plethora of wisdom and universal truths found in Iles writing.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.

http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2019/03/cemetery-road.html

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2740973138

I'm sharing a few of the quotes I saved even though I had a review copy and not a final edition.

"Many a man or woman has awakened from a months-long oxytocin high and realized that they’ve put their spouse, their children, or even their life at risk in a blind quest to regain a purity and intensity of experience allowed only to the young."

"Whatever the trigger of our passion, we cross a line that we once believed inviolate, and by so doing throw the world out of balance in such a way that it must eventually right itself, regardless of human casualties. Ironically, our passion blinds us to our true motives. Often we perceive our personal world as out of balance and seize on the notion that another person will somehow right the ship, restoring the “happiness” we crave. The mind-altering ecstasy of sexual union further distorts our perception, making it infinitely harder to navigate the maze we have created for ourselves. This self-induced blindness pushes us to take insane risks."

“Maybe I shouldn’t give you advice. But I’ll say this: if your dad doesn’t come around, it’s because he doesn’t want to. That’s got nothing to do with you. He’s missing something in his character. Divorce is one thing, leaving a wife. But a man who leaves his children is something else. I’ve got no respect for a man who does that. A father who leaves his children does damage that can never be repaired. That’s why you’re hurting now.”

"And the horror is this: when your wife or husband truly gives themselves to another person, they haven’t done it to hurt you. In fact, they’ve probably taken great care to avoid hurting you. No, the unspeakable truth is that you no longer matter to them. Except as the mother or father of their children, you do not exist. That is why people refuse to see. To do so, they’d have to crack the door on limitless darkness in which they have come to mean nothing to the person who knows them best in the world. They must face, probably for the first time, being utterly alone. And that way lies madness."

“We’re all on Cemetery Road,” he says, turning his head enough to see the kudzu-choked ravine drift by under the gray sky. “Some of us are just closer to this end than others. Some are still near enough to that spring to pretend the road leads somewhere else, or maybe goes on forever. But we’re all headed to the graveyard sooner or later. Or the river.” show less

Somewhere out there, right now, the NSA, the CIA and a top secret group of quantum physicists are trying to build a computer that can hold a human soul and talk to God. At least, that's the premise of Greg Iles' The Footprints of God. It's not as kooky as it sounds. Pursued by the NSA and the military, with only his psychiatrist to help, a professor must prove his sanity and unravel the mystery of his complicated nightmares, a side-effect of his work, all while trying to stop a supercomputer show more with a God complex from destroying the planet. Similar in theme to Dan Brown's work, yet better written, this novel tackles issues of religion and modern science with a fast-moving, engaging plot. show less

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 show more 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 surely 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. show less

Explosive, complex and unique. Hannibal Lechter merges with technology

One of Greg's earlier stories which takes place during the days of dialup modems and CompuServe, he's created characters and a plot that evolve with each chapter. Driven by a theme of Trust, two best friends involved in an a digital 'erotic' meeting place for the affluent play detective in order to track down a serial killer, who's reminiscent of Lechter, yet far more devious. Subplots of incest, family, and loyalty spin show more as the frantic momentum builds.

Having read nearly ALL of Greg's stories, this one took me by surprise given how early in his career it was written. A thriller in all respects, as the reader nears the 'finish line', the pace quickens to the point where you're panting with each page turned. Greg's mysteries rank equally with the likes of Baldacci, Patterson, Grisham and others, though his diversity is far above. Well researched, paced and immersive, he's one of the best crime/mystery writers today and THIS is one of his best! show less