Greg Iles’ specialty is smart, literary thrillers set in the South, and his latest book, Cemetery Road, is no exception. A recent Publisher’s Weekly review has lured me to the book like a cat to catnip: A big-city investigative journalist moves back down South to a small town in Mississippi to help care for an aging parent and save the family’s 150-year-old newspaper. Yeah, yeah, so what? Oh, but there’s intrigue, corruption, dysfunction and sex — and the Poker Club, a group of powerful businessmen who have run the town forever. (Sounds like Nashville’s own Watauga, which pulled our city’s strings from the 1960s through the 1980s.) Iles lives in Mississippi, and his work is steeped in the history and politics of the South — and he knows how to tell a great story. He’s the author of numerous books, including Natchez Burning, part of a Mississippi trilogy, and 24 Hours, which was made into the movie Trapped. And since he’s a member of The Rock Bottom Remainders, the (somewhat) musical group made up of literary superstars like Stephen King, Amy Tan and Roy Blount Jr., he’s bound to be entertaining. GALYN GLICK MARTIN
Salon@615 With Greg Iles
