Fiction, Fiction Subjects

The Devil's Punchbowl

Name: The Devil's Punchbowl
Author: Greg Iles
ISBN: 9781451668704

by Greg Iles

Write a review

Overview

With his gift for crafting “a keep-you engaged- to-the-very-last-page thriller” (USA Today) at full throttle, Greg Iles brings back the unforgettable Penn Cage in this electrifying suspense masterpiece.

A new day has dawned . . . but the darkest evils live forever in the murky depths of a Southern town.

Penn Cage was elected mayor of Natchez, Mississippi—the hometown he returned to after the death of his wife—on a tide of support for change. Two years into his term, casino gambling has proved a sure bet for bringing new jobs and fresh money to this fading jewel of the Old South. But deep inside the Magnolia Queen, a fantastical repurposed steamboat, a depraved hidden world draws high-stakes players with money to burn on their unquenchable taste for blood sport and the dark vices that go with it. When an old high school friend hands him blood-chilling evidence, Penn alone must beat the odds tracking a sophisticated killer who counters his every move, placing those nearest to him—including his young daughter, his renowned physician father, and a lover from the past—in grave danger, and all at the risk of jeopardizing forever the town he loves.

About the Author, Greg Iles

Greg Iles is the author of thirteen New York Times bestselling novels, including Third Degree, True Evil, Turning Angel, Blood Memory, and The Footprints of God. He lives in Natchez, Mississippi.

Biography

Greg Iles has led a sort of double life as a novelist. His first books, based on extrapolations from real events in World War II, earned him an initial following, but his very modern crime novels are what currently hold his -- and his readers' -- focus. His tight pacing and chilling, innovative concepts have made him especially attractive to Hollywood, which has optioned and/or expressed interest in several of his books.

Iles's first novel, Spandau Phoenix, was about the secret escape of a Nazi soldier and the chilling plot related in his discovered diaries. It was a mixed success critically, earning praise for its premise but low marks on style. Since then, Iles has clearly developed as a novelist, and branched out in themes too.

With his second novel, Black Cross, Iles displayed more of a voice and more streamlined plotting in his story of a conspiracy to use the Nazi's own weapons against them. Those first two titles did become bestsellers; but by the time Iles shifted gears to write crime thrillers set in his native Mississippi, he found himself getting even more attention -- and better reviews. His next two books, Mortal Fear and The Quiet Game, remain his personal favorites. Iles was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where his father was in charge of the medical clinic at the U.S. Embassy, in 1961. He graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983 and played guitar in a rock band for several years before trying his hand at writing novels.

Moving from screenplays to thrillers to speculative historical fiction, Iles continues to stretch as a writer. He also indulges his love for music (he once played guitar in the band Frankly Scarlet) by performing with the Rock Bottom Remainders, an author side project that includes writers Stephen King, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, and Amy Tan

Good To Know

After graduation from college, Iles worked as an x-ray and lab technician for his father, dug ditches, and worked as a professional guitarist and singer.

Iles has the ability to be gloomily prophetic, but not intentionally. In an online chat in 1997, a fan pointed out that some real-life Internet-related murders had followed his Mortal Fear. Iles responded: "A lot of my books have been that way. My World War II thriller about Sarin gas [Black Cross] was published two months before the Sarin attack in the Japanese subway. There are very weird coincidences out there. And I do have one surefire plot I have not and probably never will write, because of my fear someone will carry it out."

Iles's wife is a high-school sweetheart whom he married when he was 29.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

If former prosecutor Penn Cage thought that he was entering pristine waters when he became the mayor of Natchez, he was sorely mistaken. One of the five gambling steamboats plying its trade nearby on the Mississippi River has an exclusive clientele and a high-stakes agenda all its own. When Cage learns that the dangerous games aboard this sinful ship sometimes include murder, he has no choice but to launch a one-man campaign against these floating vice kings.

From the Publisher

"A knockout thriller that's just the right degree of chilly to combat the dog days of summer... Iles' knack for perfectly integrating character and plot could serve as a master's class for other authors." — The Dallas Morning News

Publishers Weekly

Iles's third addition to the Penn Cage saga is an effective thriller that would have been even more satisfying at half its length. There is a lot of story to cover, with Cage now mayor of Natchez, Miss., battling to save his hometown, his family and his true love from the evil clutches of a pair of homicidal casino operators who are being protected by a homeland security bigwig. Dick Hill handles the large cast of characters effortlessly, adopting Southern accents that range from aristocratic (Cage and his elderly father) to redneck (assorted Natchez townsfolk). He provides the bad guys with their vocal flair, including an icy arrogance for the homeland security honcho, a soft Asian-tempered English for the daughter of an international villain and the rough Irish brogue of the two main antagonists. One of the latter pretends to be an upper-class Englishman and, in a moment of revelation, Hill does a smashing job of switching accents mid-sentence. A Scribner hardcover (Reviews, May 25). (July)

Library Journal

Penn Cage (Quiet Game, Turning Angel), a former prosecuting attorney-turned-novelist, is now mayor of Natchez, MS, his hometown. But all is not well, for the promises he made as a candidate seem all but impossible to achieve as a working mayor. When one of his childhood friends is murdered a day after contacting him with information concerning dog fighting, prostitution, drugs, and money laundering presided over by the manager of a Natchez gambling casino, Cage takes on an investigation that makes him the target of organized crime, endangers the lives of his family and closest friends, and draws the wrath of the Justice Department and Homeland Security. VERDICT Iles's latest provides a thrill a minute, as Cage calls in long-owed favors to protect his family while employing every strategy in his command against a savvy, conscienceless killer. The author also manages to advance the love between Cage and Caitlin Masters, which, readers will remember, began in Turning Angel, and to present a striking panoramic view of his hometown. Highly recommended for thriller fans looking for a white-knuckled beach read.—Thomas L. Kilpatrick, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Kirkus Reviews

A steamy, swampy tale of international nastiness by accomplished thriller writer Iles (True Evil, 2006, etc.). Penn Cage, steely protagonist of two previous novels (The Quiet Game, 1999; Turning Angel, 2005), is now mayor of Natchez, Miss., and, after something of a midlife crisis involving both widowhood and a career change, heading deep into middle age. Penn reconnects with a childhood friend who brings him dark word of bad things happening down in the Devil's Punchbowl, a hollow off the Mississippi River where bad guys have long disposed of their victims. The bad guys are no longer the river rats and Confederate deserters of old; now they come from all over the world-the toughest of them, it seems, from Ireland-to do a thriving trade in illegal things surrounding the already lucrative business of legalized gambling. Those things include drugs, underage prostitution, white slavery and dogfighting. The novel's perfectly rendered atmospherics and sometimes depressive sense of miasmal gloom ("I'd be dog bait, and that's a truly terrible way to die") frequently invoke Faulkner, though Iles' prose is more straightforward. The mayhem is altogether postmodern, a perfect vehicle for Billy Bob Thornton (as heavy or hero, your pick) and a shattering experience for everyone involved, not least Cage's sometime girlfriend, who finds herself deeper in the mire than anyone might have wanted, and his boyhood pal, for whom things do not turn out happily. Strong characters, male and female; utterly convincing villains in Brooks Brothers suits and private jets; and a believable premise. All these elements add up to a tale that ends, yes, on the promise of a sequel to come. Just right for beach reading atGulfport-or Tunica, for that matter: a whodunit that aspires to literature, albeit of the Southern Gothic variety.