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BOOK REVIEW: by Greg Isles Review By Jules Mermelstein, Esq., author of Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue
A
s a fan of legal thrillers, and the author of one, when I see that there’s a legal thriller series I have not encountered previously, I immediately want to read the first in the series to become familiar with both the main character and the author’s writing style. When I heard that the seventh novel in a legal thriller series was to be published in June 2023, I knew I had to read the first one. The Quiet Game by Greg Isles was published in 1999 and is the first featuring Penn Cage, a former prosecutor in Houston and a best-selling author who moves back to his hometown, Natchez, Mississippi, after his wife dies. His young daughter is having a hard time adapting to her mother’s death and Penn believes moving in with his parents, at least temporarily, will help his daughter. Being a celebrity, Penn is interviewed by the publisher of the hometown paper, and casually brings up the apparent civil rights-related murder of a Black worker in the town in 1968 that was never solved. The publication of his musings on the murder creates ripples in the small town, which prefers to not be reminded of its dirty laundry. Some of these ripples include the mother and the widow of the murdered Black man trying to hire Penn to investigate the case, which Penn declines. They include the Black candidate running to unseat the White incumbent mayor asking Penn to stop talking about the case so that he can attract some White votes. They include attempts on Penn’s life and threats to his family. They include a Black police officer trying to encourage Penn to investigate, to which he eventually agrees. The novel includes many main characters. In addition to Penn and his family, there are the aforementioned publisher, former police officers, former and current FBI agents, the Director of the FBI, and the former District Attorney and Supreme Court Justice who is the father of Penn’s first serious girlfriend. And, of course, that prior girlfriend, who is now a big-time attorney elsewhere, returns and is a major character throughout.
6 SIDEBAR
I was impressed with the diverse and sometimes surprising back stories of the multiple characters and the motivations and actions of these characters. Just as I think I have figured out where the plot is going, it whips me around in a different direction, and then does so again and again. As with all good novels, the further one moves in the plot, the harder it is to put down the book. My only criticism of this novel is a personal preference. I do not like detailed descriptions in books I read, which is why I did not include them in the one I wrote. In legal thrillers, especially, I concentrate on the character and motivations of the main characters and the plot. Mr. Isles apparently likes detailed descriptions. Those descriptions are easily skimmed and did not diminish my enjoyment in the characters and plot. Some of the many interesting observations in the novel, without giving away the plot, include a comment about who committed the 1968 murder. It struck me that this comment applies to some current events. Penn describes the guilty as “Racist cowards motivated by the tacit encouragement of white leaders who knew better.” One comment about how the past influences us struck me as a perfect summary of not only individuals’ personal history, but also communities, states, nations, and world history. Einstein said the arrow of time flies in only one direction. Faulkner, being from Mississippi, understood the matter differently. He said the past is never dead; it’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose provenance dates back to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. Much later in the novel, this theme repeats in one sentence, which appears to be the moral of the story. “Our actions have consequences that last long after us, entwining the present with the future in ways we cannot begin to understand.” If you like legal thrillers, I highly recommend this first in a series and, I assume, the series itself.
