Southern Man - (Penn Cage) by Greg Iles

Book Synopsis

An instant New York Times bestseller!

"Greg Iles is one of America's great storytellers." -Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A first-rate political thriller."-John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author

The hugely anticipated new Penn Cage novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy and Cemetery Road, about a man--and a town--rocked by anarchy and tragedy, but unbowed in the fight to save those they love

Fifteen years after the events of the Natchez Burning trilogy, Penn Cage is alone. Nearly all his loved ones are dead, his old allies gone, and he carries a mortal secret that separates him from the world. But Penn's exile comes to an end when a brawl at a Mississippi rap festival triggers a bloody mass shooting--one that nearly takes the life of his daughter Annie.

As the stunned cities of Natchez and Bienville reel, antebellum plantation homes continue to burn and the deadly attacks are claimed by a Black radical group as historic acts of justice. Panic sweeps through the tourist communities, driving them inexorably toward a race war.

But what might have been only a regional sideshow of the 2024 Presidential election explodes into national prominence, thanks to the stunning ascent of Robert E. Lee White, a Southern war hero who seizes the public imagination as a third-party candidate. Dubbed "the Tik-Tok Man," and funded by an eccentric Mississippi billionaire, Bobby White rides the glory of his Special Forces record to an unprecedented run at the White House--one unseen since the campaign of H. Ross Perot.

To triumph over the national party machines, Bobby evolves a plan of unimaginable daring. One fateful autumn weekend, with White set to declare his candidacy in all fifty states, the forces polarizing America line up against one another: Black vs. white, states vs. the federal government, democracy vs. Fascism. Teaming with his fearless daughter (now a civil rights lawyer) and a former Black Panther who spent most of his life in Parchman Prison, Penn tears into Bobby White's pursuit of the Presidency and ultimately risks a second Civil War to try to expose its motivation to the world, before the America of our Constitution slides into the abyss.

In Southern Man, Greg Iles returns to the riveting style and historic depth that made the Natchez Burning trilogy a searing masterpiece and hurls the narrative fifteen years forward into our current moment--where America itself teeters on the brink of anarchy.

Review Quotes

"Greg Iles is one of America's great storytellers. His books are page-turners with real literary resonance. Southern Man is the latest and the best." -- Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A first-rate political thriller.... an unflinching look at the frightening rise of fascism and Trumpism." -- John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Iles delivers an insightful, ambitious, and satisfying saga. This is a high water mark in a strong series." -- Publishers Weekly

"This is a genuinely terrifying book because of its plausibility--Iles perfectly captures the tinderbox that America is in the post-Trump era. . . .This is a perfectly done political thriller with genuine resonance. Astonishing." -- Kirkus (starred review) on Southern Man

"This astonishingly good novel is very much a product of its time, a story of violence and racial unrest in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. . . Politically charged and written in rich, visually evocative prose, this is Iles at his reader-thrilling best." -- Booklist (starred review) on Southern Man

"An ambitious stand-alone thriller that is both an absorbing crime story and an in-depth exploration of grief, betrayal and corruption... Iles's latest calls to mind the late, great Southern novelist Pat Conroy. Like Conroy, Iles writes with passion, intensity and absolute commitment." -- Washington Post on Cemetery Road

"Pure reading pleasure. This guy knows the deep south as well or better than any other novelist." -- Stephen King on Cemetery Road

"Iles... has made Mississippi his own in the same way that James Lee Burke has claimed Cajun country and Michael Connelly has remapped contemporary Los Angeles... They will be talking about this one for a quite a while." -- Booklist (starred review) on Cemetery Road

"A sweeping tale of family dysfunction [and] sexually charged secrets." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Cemetery Road

"It is impossible to turn away. It's like binge-watching your favorite TV drama, and you don't dare take your eyes off the screen for fear of missing out on another revelation. Cemetery Road is full of them." -- Bookreporter.com

"Imagine William Faulkner and Stieg Larsson had a love child. Natchez Burning combines the pace of Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with a Faulkneresque, bone-deep knowledge of Mississippi in all its beauty and racial torment." -- AARP Magazine

"Every single page of Natchez Burning is a cliffhanger that will keep you devouring just one more chapter before you put it down to eat, work, or go to bed.... This ambitious, unique novel is the perfect marriage of a history lesson and a thriller." -- Jodi Picoult

"Iles carries it off with style, intelligence and passion...The Bone Tree is filled with menace, betrayal, [and] unexpected plot twists. . . [and] is a very American epic-in-progress that leaves us waiting, none too patiently, for whatever revelations are still to come." -- Washington Post

"Extraordinary. . . . 'Great Expectations' transplanted to an American South laced with comparably gothic overtones. . . . The Bone Tree establishes Iles as this generation's William Faulkner." -- Providence Journal

"Absolutely compelling.... A beautifully constructed story [and] some extremely fine writing." -- Booklist (starred review) on The Bone Tree

"Greg Iles' bestselling Penn Cage saga--most famously his "Natchez Burning" trilogy and now his latest, SOUTHERN MAN [are] thrillers with the stakes raised by Iles' exploration of the racism that has long ruled the South and haunted the nation." -- Los Angeles Times

"Astonishing.... The most timely book of 2024." -- Dayton Daily News

"A masterstroke from a master writer... a contemporary and prescient political thriller." -- Tom Mayer, Oxford Magazine

"Crime writing of a rare order...As much a trenchant state-of-the-nation novel as a mesmeric page-turner." -- Financial Times