Title: The Quiet Game (Penn Cage Series #1)Author: Greg Iles
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Rating: PG-13
Publisher: Signet Books
Publication Date: July 1st 2000 (first published July 6th 1999)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 640 pages
Source: Purchased Finished Copy
My Rating: 4*
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Trying to cope with the recent death of his wife, Cage takes his 5-year-old daughter to Florida's Disney World, where the child sadly sees visions of her mother everywhere in the fantasy-filled environment. Wouldn't a trip to his parents' stately home in Natchez be more soothing for all concerned? Wrong, as it turns out--and before Cage can catch his breath, he's deeply involved in several dangerous matters. His father, a dedicated doctor, is being blackmailed for a past mistake in judgment, and a powerful judge (who just happens to be the father of Penn's high school sweetheart) has a nasty personal agenda of his own. Then there's the unsolved 1968 murder case of a black man, which Cage insists on reopening with the help of an attractive, ambitious newspaper publisher.
Quotes
"I will do those things which make me happy today and which I can also live with ten years from now."
My Thoughts
So I am not really sure just who turned me on to the Penn Cage series by Greg Iles. If I did, I would give them a huge hug, because this series has turned out to be pretty amazing.
The Quiet Game is the first book in the Penn Cage series and of course, I read it after I read the second book, The Turning Angel. Reading it second is probably why I didn't give it five stars as I was comparing it to the second book. If you haven't started this series yet, please read this one first. Don't read the books out-of-order as it really spoils them.
The book is really, really raw. Penn Cage returns to his home town after the death of his wife to find out that his father is being blackmailed over a decades old mistake. It all revolves around the 1968 unsolved car bombing and murder of a member of Natchez's black community. As you can imagine, there was a fair bit of racial tension at the time of the murder, and now that Penn is digging into the case, the tension ratchets up once again. It seems that most people in the town know something, but aren't willing to talk for whatever reason.
The case does get solved in the end, but it doesn't have the same resolution as one would suspect of a civil rights era murder case. Added to that, Penn doesn't investigate the case as a lawyer, even though he is a former prosecutor. He investigates it for both moral and personal reasons and it is refreshing to see a character struggle with his decision and trying to balance his need to help his father and his wish to protect his daughter at all costs.
*Warning* Like most books that deal with civil rights era issues, the language in the book is strong and has definitely reflects the atmosphere of the situation.
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