レビュー要約

• 人物描写と主題の明確さを評価する声がある一方、静かな展開や重い題材をじっくり読む作品として受け止められている。

レビュー

• “Natchez Burning” is easily the best of the Penn Cage novels I’ve read… so far.

  I just finished reading Greg Iles’ “Natchez Burning” for the second time, and I thought I’d add my voice to the other 4,500-plus people who have reviewed this superb crime novel on Amazon.com. “Natchez Burning” is the first in a trilogy of novels about a series of fictional unsolved civil rights-era murders in Natchez, Mississippi and its surrounding areas. It is also the fourth in a series of novels featuring protagonist Penn Cage, a former Houston, Texas prosecutor, a published novelist, and currently the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi. Cage suddenly finds himself confronted with the fact that his father, Dr. Tom Cage – the town’s most respected and beloved physician – is about to be arrested for murdering Viola Turner, an African American nurse who worked for him forty years earlier, and with whom he briefly carried on a torrid love affair. Penn Cage believes his father didn’t do it, but his father refuses to answer any questions about what happened to Viola. Nothing seems clear about the case. It somehow appears to be linked to a series of unsolved, forty-year-old racial killings by members of an ultra-violent offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan. Penn Cage can be sure of only one thing: the local district attorney, a bitter personal and political enemy of his, is determined to send Dr. Tom Cage to prison for the rest of his life, as an act of revenge against his son... I have read several of Greg Iles’ novels, and I have enjoyed each one tremendously. I am especially impressed with the books in his Penn Cage series. Iles populates his novels with fascinating characters, engrossing and suspenseful plots and sub-plots, and plenty of twists, turns and surprises. Iles writes with a wonderful flair. His prose is smooth, literate, and easy to read, and it keeps getting better with each book. “Natchez Burning” is easily the best of the Penn Cage novels I’ve read… so far. It took me only four days to devour its 789 pages. This is crime fiction at its best. Most highly recommended.

• Réclamation

  J'ai cliqué sur la version française de ce livre pour Kindle et le logiciel lui a substitué une version anglaise. Comment puis-je être remboursé ?

• Awe inspiring. Brilliant addictive read.

  Thank you THANK YOU to Kate and Bob at Killer Reads for the advance copy. Probably THE best book post I have ever had. Penn Cage is facing a son’s worst nightmare – having his father stand accused of murder. Worse, each effort to defend the legendary Dr Tom Cage unearths new, shocking secrets, leaving Penn to question whether he ever really knew his father at all. So for those of you who have not read the previous Penn Cage novels from Greg Iles (the first being “The Quiet Game” ) I would encourage you to do so, however you CAN start here – the first part of a planned trilogy featuring the character, as there is enough information for a new reader without actually spoiling the previous books. There are reasons why this is one of the best “presents” I have received since reviewing seriously – a few years back I read the last Penn Cage novel, “The Devils Punchbowl” which was as brilliantly addictive as all the rest. When it ended there was a hint, a taster if you like, for what might happen next. In the notes Mr Iles told us that, unusually, there would be a further Penn Cage novel the following year (usually there is a bigger gap – he also writes TREMENDOUSLY gripping standalone books and never actually intended to write a series but Penn wouldnt go away) then of course disaster struck. Mr Iles was involved in a serious accident – all that mattered after that was recovery. I, for one, am extremely grateful that recover he did over a period of time, otherwise the world would have lost another great writer on top of the obvious horror of personal loss for his family.I prayed. I’m sure his other readers did as well. And now here we are.. And what a glorious, once again addictive, seriously mind blowing read we have here. Absolutely gripping. A deeply involving story about the effects and events surrounding racial tension in the Deep South Mr Iles blends fact and fiction with terrific effect. Past leaks into present with terrifying results and as well as being a most fascinating tale, for this reader it was also an education. These subjects are dealt with in previous books but for me this was a revelation. On top of all that, there is the well drawn, compelling story of the relationship between father and son. Tom Cage is a local hero, known as a moral man, loved by many, the backbone of his community and a much admired Doctor. He grew up during the troubled times where the colour of your skin determined how you were treated, viewed, what you were allowed to do with your life, where you could eat, sleep, drink. Always assuming him to be on the side of truth and justice, Penn has always had the greatest love and affection for his Dad and an instinctive trust about who he is. All that is about to be thrown up into the air, who knows where the pieces will land or what will be left of this trust when it is all over. Amazing. The only word that springs to mind. As dark secrets begin to emerge, you will be swept along with the sheer beauty of the writing, the absolute emotion of each moment and often sitting on the edge of your seat awaiting answers to, frankly, unanswerable questions about the way human beings treat each other. Will Tom Cage ultimately turn out to be exactly who Penn thought he was? Or is he as fallible as the rest… I am in awe. And I cannot wait for the next part of the story, it has buried itself deep within my reading soul and I imagine that overall this is one that will stay with me for life. Read it. Love it. Live it. Happy Reading Folks!

• Just love the protagonist

  What a sensational thriller. Genuinely page turning breath taking writing. Just love the protagonist. You rock Penn Cage!!

• A long and somewhat overworked story

  The book has slow, a very slow start....you have to reach page 360 to see the end of the first day of the story...lots of flash backs, lots of digressions, lots of reflections. In fact the author does a lot of foundational work in this first part of the book; the story is rooted in a far past, and several connections between the present days and that remote time need to be planted upfront, and this takes time. I guess this is the toll the novel has to pay to qualify as "epic", and it actually does; though the time in which the present day events take place is only a few days, the story spans over 40 years....so the breadth of the story is wide and its themes deep, from the racial tensions of the 60's in Mississippi to the killings of MLK, JFK and RFK, which provide the historical background to the events involving Penn Cage, his father and more broadly all his dears. Moreover, all this foundational work is needed as a basis of not only this book, but of the entire trilogy. This makes up a pretty intricate plot, where the events unfold in rather complicated ways; the the story is almost overworked, with different layers overlapping, hence you must have some patience to keep all the pieces together in your mind. This is a long, long book, after the slow start it picks up nicely in the middle part but then the last third has a few holes where the narration loses tension and you start feeling some reading fatigue. To this, one must add the fact that the author pushes all situations in such exaggerated ways to border (or someone may say pass) the limits of believability even for a fiction; this was actually the decisive factor for me to rate the book 3 vs. 4 stars. So, in the end, this is a heavy tome, both figuratively and literally, you need to bear with story all along its 800+ pages, but the writing is pretty good enough not to make it a mission impossible.

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