Greg Iles Turning Angel

Turning Angel

Greg Iles

Scribner, Jan 2005, $25.95, 512

ISBN 0743234725

Former Houston prosecutor Penn Cage returns home to Natchez, Mississippi to become a writer. He loves his hometown and thinks it is a place to get away from the crime and corruption of big city life. He begins to get an inking that his town is a microcosm of big city life when he and his friend Drew Elliot learn that the golden girl of the St. Stephen's Preparatory School, the class valedictorian, Kate Townsend, was found murdered with her body partially naked.

Drew hires Penn but also confesses that he and Kate were in love and he was going to leave his wife for her. Evidence shows that Kate was raped and other circumstantial evidence paints Drew as the killer. Penn investigates Kate and is shocked to learn that she had a connection to the town's drug supplier. Penn who didn't even realize yet there was a drug problem in the area comes under fire from the drug selling crowd. Penn wants to clear his friend and clean up Natchez by running for mayor if he doesn't get killed first.

Greg Iles has written a crime thriller that is full of non-stop action and characters that represent a cross section of American. The protagonist goes to extreme measures to help a friend and almost dies in the process of seeking the truth. Readers feel sorry for Penn who is disillusioned by people he thought he knew yet he has a core of inner strength that allows him to overcome every obstacle the criminals, the corrupt D.A. and police throw at him. TURNING ANGEL is a compelling reading experience.

Harriet Klausner