The story is an exploration of family, race, murder and what used to be called ''miscegenation'' in the south of the United States. There the word means marriage or cohabitation between a black and a white person.
In Natchez Burning, the dark days of the early 1960s and the shadow of the ''Klan'', come back to terrorise Cage and his family, when his father, Dr Tom Cage, is accused of murdering Violet Turner, the beautiful African-American nurse with whom he worked. This gripping thriller intertwines crimes, lies and secrets past and present. By page 74 I was wondering whether the author could continue to maintain the unrelenting, chillingly tight-paced narrative. But continue he does (as do his characters) until closure at page 788.
I found Natchez Burning difficult to put down. Iles, who was raised and lives in Natchez, Mississippi, says critical parts of the story he kept to himself for years, almost afraid to confront their implications. Then, he says, he came to know a lone reporter who was working on unsolved civil rights murders just across the Mississippi River from Natchez.
Somehow, with little else but determination and a desire to bring peace to the tortured families of the victims, this man was outpacing the entire FBI.
As Nelson and Iles became friends, Iles realised Nelson's quest could provide a broad and vivid canvas against which to play out the most harrowing of all his Penn Cage stories.
- Ted Fox is a Dunedin online marketing consultant.
