Blood Memory

This being my seventh Greg Iles book, it's unique as compared to others. Set in both Natchez and New Orleans, the narrative is an emotionally troubled female which Greg executes with perfection. Cat Ferry's life explodes in the midst of an investigation of a mysterious serial murderer. In parallel, her desire to uncover the childhood death of her father, illuminates how she was abused, the root of her troubles as an adult. Her dreams expose some of the pieces; as she slowly assembles them, a link with the serial murders clarifies. Greg's mastery of building momentum, this story rockets from the first chapter and like a growing snowball as it speeds down a hill, explodes towards the end. With each revelation, danger grows from the dark show more side as well as the law, a contradiction in terms if there was one. With today's #Metoo movement, its hard not to draw parallels. For those are new to this author, we're introduced to Dr. Cage and Agent Kaiser, two characters that play pivotal roles in the Natchez Burning series. Highly recommended page turner, driven by a child abuse theme I can't wait to read the next one! show less

I found a copy of this at our beach house and picked it up for something to read while we were there - I couldn't put it down. I loved it. Cat is a mess, personally and now her professional career is taking a dive. Suffering from panic attacks at the last two crime scenes Cat is struggling to get control of her life. She is pregnant by her married boyfriend, trying to withdraw from alcohol and is having flashbacks of her fathers death. It seems that the story she has been told all her life is not true and the truth is muddled up in her head with blackouts, manic episodes, and alcohol. Now the police think she may have some inside information into the serial murders that are taking place or she may actually be the perpetrator. The truth show more however is far more disturbing.

I loved how this book unraveled, as Cat tries to piece together what is going on with her. Iles has hooked me with his subtle writing, it was like peeling an onion with each layer you find something new. His descriptions of the South and southern culture bring the bayou right to you and allow you to feel the humidity in the air and the deeply secretive ways of many of the little towns near New Orleans.

I am also impressed that Iles has been able to capture the fear, confusion and insight of a female character which seems so difficult for so many male writers who try to have a female protagonist. Kudos Iles I will be seeking you out for more! So glad I found this one. show less

More of a psychological thriller than a straight up forensic procedural. This is largely due to the fact that Cat is pretty screwed up. Considering the length of the book, I wish Iles had done more showing of Cat’s erratic behavior than telling, which he does in the first couple of paragraphs of the book. Some of the drawn out action sequences and internal monologues could have been trimmed without doing harm to the overall story and would have left room for showing us what Cat was like.

So we’re told that she has to be on all kinds of meds to curb her behavior. She’s also an alcoholic. With all these chemicals in her system fighting for precedence it’s a wonder she can stand up much less be accomplished in her field of forensic show more odontology. When she basically quits everything cold turkey it quite leaves the bounds of reality. I’m sorry, but that particular chemical cocktail wouldn’t have left her quite so gently. Not only does she make brilliant leaps of intuition, she is coldly logical during both her investigations. Oh, but wait, she’s also insanely irrational and impulsive. She does a completely stupid thing one second and a completely rational one the next. I really wanted to smack her a lot of the time. Oh yeah, and she’s pregnant, too, as if the rest of her crazy life weren’t bad enough, now she’s going to bring some innocent into her sucking black hole. It was really too much to make me like her or even believe this person could exist.

Of course the two cases intersect, but only coincidentally. It was pretty obvious that her dead daddy wasn’t her molester, but she bought it for a while and we had to wade through countless emotional blood-lettings until she figured out what we already knew. Grandpa was drawn as such an evil figure that at first, his fate wasn’t satisfactory. Then when Pearly spilled the story, I felt better.

There were some passages I had to fast forward over though. Iles was effective in making me squirm. The book is pretty graphic when it comes to describing rape and child abuse. Not so much the act of the latter, but the after effects and the emotional fall out that inevitably occurs. The cycle of abuse is pretty well detailed as well – every abuser is a victim. There’s also Cat’s father’s Vietnam experience which wasn’t too pleasant either.

Eventually both cases are solved and Cat is free to heal and put her life together. Of course there is a fine, upstanding man to take the place of the snakey Sean, and it’s a bit cliché for what has come before. That’s why even though I found this book relentlessly compelling, I can’t give it top marks. It needed more focus and believability for that. show less

Greg Iles definitely knows how to tell a multi-layered story very well. As is often true with his novels, the protagonist becomes a vehicle for the exploration of a human experience via the examination of its psychological, social, and physical perspectives. Iles has demonstrated the consistent ability to describe the macro and micro of complex issues, in this case incest/sexual abuse. Set in New Orleans, the protagonist moves from confusion to complicity to clarity in a manner that strikes this reader as realistic and very human. Nice twists and turns as well, which are de rigeur for a good serial killer mystery.

forensic mystery/thriller (series but works well as a standalone, set in New Orleans and Natchez) - Cat Ferry (forensic odontologist and not-officially-sanctioned crime investigator) solves a series of murders while also dealing with layers of her own personal trauma that lately have been giving her panic attacks. (TW: violence, sexual assault, tons child sexual abuse)

After attempting to read Brad Thor, Greg Iles' relatively complex characters and plot development was so welcome! Towards the middle and end this story got dark (too many abused children and child abusers), but it was still compulsively readable. Set in author's current hometown of Natchez, Mississipi as well as New Orleans, Louisiana.

A fast-paced read by Iles, but not one of my favorites. When forensic odontological, "Cat" Kelly starts suffering from panic attack S at crime scenes, she is suspended from the force. Cat returns to her Mississippi hometown suffering from alcoholism, nightmares, and doubt about an affair with a married man. As she seeks answers to her father's death, she finds the link too close with the brutal murders she was trying to solve. Although I am a HUGE fan of the Natchez series, this one fell short for me. I didn't especially like Cat, even knowing some of the circumstances which caused her to be the woman she grew to be.

At age 31, Cat Ferry has it all going for her: brains, beauty, family wealth, and an accomplished career in a branch of the dental sciences that puts her into frequent contact with police officers solving intriguing crimes. But Cat Ferry is a mess: dental school was a refuge from the medical school she was asked to leave, she has a string of broken relationships with older men, alcoholism is a likely diagnosis, and her current relationship with a married police officer is quickly reaching its crisis point. I love the "Penn" character and hope the author keeps him. If you like Grisham or DeMille you will love Iles.