The Devil's Punchbowl


Book Description

Lawyer Penn Cage goes up against a mix of murder, racial tension, double-crosses, illicit sex ... and all of the ensuing violent consequences in the kudzu-strangled, snake- rat- and armadillo-infested hole of the Devil's Punchbowl.




The Quiet Game


Book Description

INTRODUCING PENN CAGE... From the author of Cemetery Road comes the first intelligent, gripping thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Penn Cage series. Natchez, Mississippi. Jewel of the South. City of old money and older sins. And childhood home of Houston prosecutor Penn Cage. In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, this is where Penn has returned for solitude. This is where he hopes to find peace. What he discovers instead is his own family trapped in a mystery buried for thirty years but never forgotten—the town’s darkest secret, now set to trap and destroy Penn as well.







People Could Fly: American Black Folktales


Book Description

Retold Afro-American folktales of animals, fantasy, the supernatural, and desire for freedom, born of the sorrow of the slaves, but passed on in hope.




Turning Angel


Book Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Mississippi Blood and The Bone Tree keeps the secrets of the South alive in this “powerful…heartfelt…entirely gripping” (The Washington Post) novel of infatuation, murder, and sexual intrigue set in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. When the nude body of a beautiful young female student is found near the Mississippi River, the entire community is shocked—but no one more than Penn Cage, who discovers that his best friend, Drew Elliott, was entangled in a passionate relationship with the girl and may be accused of her murder. On the surface, Kate Townsend seems the most unlikely murder victim imaginable. A star student and athlete, she’d been accepted to Harvard and carried the hope and pride of the town on her shoulders. But like her school and her town, Kate also had a secret life—one about which her adult lover knew little. Penn will do all he can to exonerate Drew, but in a town where the gaze of a landmark cemetery statue—the Turning Angel—never looks away, Penn finds himself caught on the jagged edge of blackmail, betrayal, and deadly violence. By the time Penn arrives at the shattering truth, this quiet Southern town will never be the same and “Turning Angel will have you wondering where Greg Iles has been all your life” (USA TODAY).




Devils Walking


Book Description

After midnight on December 10, 1964, in Ferriday, Louisiana, African American Frank Morris awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Outside his home and shoe shop, standing behind the shattered window, Klansmen tossed a lit match inside the store, now doused in gasoline, and instantly set the building ablaze. A shotgun pointed to Morris’s head blocked his escape from the flames. Four days later Morris died, though he managed in his last hours to describe his attackers to the FBI. Frank Morris’s death was one of several Klan murders that terrorized residents of northeast Louisiana and Mississippi, as the perpetrators continued to elude prosecution during this brutal era in American history. In Devils Walking: Klan Murders along the Mississippi in the 1960s, Pulitzer Prize finalist and journalist Stanley Nelson details his investigation—alongside renewed FBI attention—into these cold cases, as he uncovers the names of the Klan’s key members as well as systemized corruption and coordinated deception by those charged with protecting all citizens. Devils Walking recounts the little-known facts and haunting stories that came to light from Nelson’s hundreds of interviews with both witnesses and suspects. His research points to the development of a particularly virulent local faction of the Klan who used terror and violence to stop integration and end the advancement of civil rights. Secretly led by the savage and cunning factory worker Red Glover, these Klansmen—a handpicked group that included local police officers and sheriff’s deputies—discarded Klan robes for civilian clothes and formed the underground Silver Dollar Group, carrying a silver dollar as a sign of unity. Their eight known victims, mostly African American men, ranged in age from nineteen to sixty-seven and included one Klansman seeking redemption for his past actions. Following the 2007 FBI reopening of unsolved civil rights–era cases, Nelson’s articles in the Concordia Sentinel prompted the first grand jury hearing for these crimes. By unmasking those responsible for these atrocities and giving a voice to the victims’ families, Devils Walking demonstrates the importance of confronting and addressing the traumatic legacy of racism.




Natchez Burning


Book Description

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes the first novel in his Natchez Burning trilogy—which also includes The Bone Tree and the upcoming Mississippi Blood—an epic trilogy that interweaves crimes, lies, and secrets past and present in a mesmerizing thriller featuring Southern lawyer and former prosecutor Penn Cage. Raised in the southern splendor of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows of duty from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor has been accused of murdering the African American nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the 1960s. Once a crusading prosecutor, Penn is determined to save his father, but Tom, stubbornly invoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses even to speak in his own defense. Penn's quest for the truth sends him deep into his father's past, where a sexually charged secret lies. More chilling, this long-buried sin is only one thread in a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the most powerful men in the state. Aided by a dedicated reporter privy to Natchez's oldest secrets and by his fiancée, Caitlin Masters, Penn uncovers a trail of corruption and brutality that places his family squarely in the Double Eagles' crosshairs. With every step costing blood and faith, Penn is forced to confront the most wrenching dilemma of his life: Does a man of honor choose his father or the truth?




The Past Is Never


Book Description

**WINNER of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction** **WINNER of the Mississippi Author Award for Adult Fiction selected by the Mississippi Library Association** **WINNER of the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for Fiction​** **​WINNER of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize ​for Fiction** **Finalist for the 2019 Colorado Book Awards for Literary Fiction*** "An ode to William Faulkner. . . . As Southern as it gets."—Deep South Magazine A compelling addition to contemporary Southern Gothic fiction, deftly weaving together local legends, family secrets, and the search for a missing child. Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water. Until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes. Not drowned, not lost . . . simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together. Years pass with no sign, no hope of ever finding Pansy alive, and as surely as their mother died of a broken heart, Bert and Willet can't move on. So when clues surface drawing them to the remote tip of Florida, they drop everything and drive south. Deep in the murky depths of the Florida Everglades they may find the answer to Pansy's mysterious disappearance . . . but truth, like the past, is sometimes better left where it lies. Perfect for fans of Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Allison, The Past Is Never is an atmospheric, haunting story of myths, legends, and the good and evil we carry in our hearts.




The Devil's Punchbowl


Book Description

The Devil�s Punchbowl: A Cultural & Geographical Map of California Today is an anthology edited by Red Hen Press�s Managing Editor, Kate Gale, and Los Angeles Times reporter and editor Veronique de Turenne. Essays were commissioned from writers living in California, who were asked to reflect on an aspect of the state�s geography, natural or man-made: Alcatraz Island and its prison; Manzanar and Mt. Whitney; Big Sur and Joshua Tree; Los Angeles� oil derricks and Mountain View�s Google headquarters; the farms of the Central Valley and the redwoods of the Northern Coastland. Does Alcatraz, from its important role in Native American activist history to today�s defunct prison, retain meaning beyond a tourist attraction? How is the expanding border fence between Southern California and Mexico affecting, economically and psychologically, the individuals who live near it? California�s outsized cultural and economic impact on both our country and the rest of the world necessitate a continual taking stock, to prevent losing ourselves in the state�s constant transformations. The Devil�s Punchbowl captures a pivotal time in our country�s history, as some of the state�s most recognized, complex, and accomplished writers describe their relationship with California�s ever-changing geographic, economic, and psychic landscape.




Everything I Loved More


Book Description

Everything I Loved More is a roller-coaster collection of true short stories that follow a young man searching for sincere adventure along the tops of freight trains and mountain ranges. The danger can be nausea-inducing while he hangs on a single flexing hold of sandstone hundreds of feet off the ground or attempts to skirt the sexual advances of a meth smoking trucker while hitchhiking through the middle of nowhere. Between the many gripping scenes, his debasing humor acknowledges the foolish romance of it all.Beyond each singular exciting and hapless adventure, an important journey is told between the tales: the journey of a young man attempting to combat mental health issues with a potent dose of unabashed recklessness - and just how well it almost works.