The Bone Tree

February 23, 2015
Iles’s richly plotted fifth Penn Cage novel, the middle book of a trilogy, picks up immediately after the previous entry, 2014’s Natchez Burning. Penn’s physician father, Tom, is a fugitive suspected of murder. Meanwhile, an unsolved civil rights case from the 1960s may have been finally cracked, and the Double Eagles, a KKK splinter group, have been linked to the traumatic assassinations of the 1960s. Penn, a former prosecutor who’s now the mayor of Natchez, Miss., and his pregnant fiancée, reporter Caitlin Masters, have barely escaped with their lives from the lair of a flamethrower-wielding sadist. The action-packed narrative moves swiftly to a surprising and moving conclusion as Penn contends with Forrest Knox, the power behind the Double Eagles, and strives to keep his loved ones safe. Some readers may feel that the link between the villains and the J.F.K. assassination is just too much, and that the tale of Penn’s efforts bringing justice to those who committed horrendous crimes against African-Americans would have been enough. Ten-city author tour. Agents: Dan Conaway and Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

Narrator Robert Petkoff does his best with this second installment in Isles's Penn Cage trilogy. The book is disappointing. Early in the story there are six murders, rape, torture, arson, and a confusing group of characters. Those events are followed by too much talk and speculation. Finally, it all comes together in an overly long ending. Those who aren't familiar with the first book, NACHEZ BURNING, will find it the plot and characters difficult to follow. The story goes back through 50 years of Southern history and speculates that a racist group called Double Eagles conspired to kill President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and numerous other Civil Rights activists. Petkoff's narration almost makes up for the author's meandering. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

November 1, 2014
In last spring's "Natchez Burning", which debuted at No. 2 on the "New York Times" best sellers list, former prosecutor Penn Cage and fiancee Caitlin Masters barely survived an attack by the Double Eagles, a virulent KKK sect. Now Penn learns that Forrest Knox, chief of the state police's Criminal Investigations Bureau, is the sect's leader, and he must protect his father by striking a deal with Knox. With a 400,000-copy first printing and a seven-city tour.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2015

Penn Cage and fiancee Caitlin Masters doggedly continue their search for the truth behind a series of murders from the 1960s. Past secrets have resurfaced to haunt Penn's father, Dr. Tom Cage. When Tom is accused of killing his former nurse, he jumps bail to evade the far-extending reach of the Double Eagles, a Ku Klux Klan secret cell. Frank Knox, the deceased Double Eagles leader, was rumored to have been highly involved with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Tracking this theory, FBI special agent John Kaiser is determined to hear the truth from Cage. High-ranking state policeman Forrest Knox, Frank's son, is also hunting for Cage, using his extensive network of corrupt police and government officials. Tangible proof of the conspiracy is rumored to be in a giant cypress known as the Bone Tree, but Forrest and the rest of the Double Eagles will do anything to stop Penn, Caitlin, and Cage. VERDICT Picking up immediately from Natchez Burning, best-selling author Iles superbly blends past and present in his swift and riveting story line. [See Prepub Alert, 10/13/14.]--Joy Gunn, Paseo Verde Lib., Henderson, NV

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2014

In last spring's Natchez Burning, which debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times best sellers list, former prosecutor Penn Cage and fiancee Caitlin Masters barely survived an attack by the Double Eagles, a virulent KKK sect. Now Penn learns that Forrest Knox, chief of the state police's Criminal Investigations Bureau, is the sect's leader, and he must protect his father by striking a deal with Knox. With a 400,000-copy first printing and a seven-city tour.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
The second installment of his hard-boiled Natchez trilogy finds Iles' (Natchez Burning, 2014, etc.) hero Penn Cage on even swampier, and surely deadlier, ground than before.Natchez, Mississippi, to Dallas is a far piece, but it's just a rifle bullet's trajectory away. Or so find Penn and his sidekick/fiancee, Caitlin Masters, when, surely unwisely, they poke deep into the klavernous doings of the local white-supremacy klatch. The Double Eagles were bad enough when resonantly named Brody Royal was in charge, but it seems he's on sabbatical, and a new boss even more viperous has moved into town. As ever, Iles' account of his hometown of Natchez is sure to displease local boosters, and as ever, he skillfully weaves family saga with local history (real and imagined) and world events, in this case the murders of civil rights workers and the not-coincidental assassination of a certain president half a century ago. As the evidence mounts, the prey begins to get testy: Warns one well-meaning ally, "If you push the Double Eagles too soon, or too hard, Forrest Knox could move to bury whatever evidence might remain. That might mean killing some of his own family, and I don't think he'd hesitate." Blood may be thicker than water, but in the South, it's thicker than even all that, so that's sayin' something: The bad guy is really bad. In a scenario swarming with FBI agents (one of whom, we learn early on, "had decided to use the authority granted him under the Patriot Act to take a step that under any other circumstances would have been a violation of the Constitution"), villains, reporters, and a red herring or two, Iles allows Cage and Masters plenty of room to operate-and so they do, with all the missteps of ordinary people, unlike the supercops and superagents of so many other procedurals. Fans will find that the pace has picked up a touch from the first volume-and that's a good thing. We'll need to wait for the next one before toting up the body count, but it's sure to be massive.