The ENGLISH SPY, the latest in the long line of Gabriel Allon mysteries by Daniel Silva centers on a plot to kill the venerated Israeli intelligence operative and art restorer.  Allon has numerous enemies, but one in particular is very upset that a plan to get the English Prime Minister to sign over lucrative North Sea drilling rights to a Kremlin owned Energy Corporation has gone array – so revenge is at the forefront.  A further inducement to be rid of Allon revolves around the future accession of Israel’s most effective assassin as head of the “Office,” the Jewish state’s intelligence agency.  Silva reintroduces a number of important characters from previous books, most important of which is Christopher Keller, a former British SAS agent, now a professional assassin.  Keller, who has his own agenda, becomes Allon’s partner in hunting down a number of individuals who are linked to the plot.  Because of Keller’s background, Silva will weave the “Irish Problem” into his story as a number of his characters were deeply involved in IRA violence in Northern Ireland.

(FSB-the successor to the Soviet KGB headquarters in Moscow)

The story begins as the former princess and recently divorced wife of the future king of England is killed while vacationing on a British yacht.  Allon is called in by the Head of MI6, Graham Seymour to uncover the truth concerning the princess’ death.  Allon is convinced it is no accident.  Israeli intelligence assures him that the chef on the boat, a Colin Hernandez is responsible for the explosion, and it turns out that Hernandez is none other than Eamon Quinn, a former IRA bomber.  After peace in Northern Ireland was achieved, Quinn became a free-lancer whose record of employment included; Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Iranian intelligence.  Years earlier the Israelis had offered to kill Quinn, and now Seymour finally takes them up on their offer.

Allon and Keller track Quinn and his accomplice, Anna Huber, a Russian agent trained from her time in an orphanage, until they are led to a bombing at Brompton Road in London.  Keller and Allon escape death, but Allon is convinced that the princess’ demise and the bombing are linked in a plot to kill him.  From this point on Silva introduces a number of important new characters as he constructs a scenario that has great relevance to the international scene at the time of the book’s release.  The Iranian nuclear negotiations are front and center of the story and the policy goals of the United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel are played out in an accurate fashion.  Silva maintains the clipped dialogue and sarcastic humor that were on display in his previous work and those new to Silva’s approach will find that they soon will become engrossed in the story.  The problem for readers who are familiar with the Allon series is that it seems a bit formulaic as Silva constructs the novel in a somewhat predictable fashion, though the story has a number of surprising twists and turns it does not grab the reader like earlier works.

Allon will stage his own death as a means of catching Quinn and the people who are behind him, resulting in a number of interesting situations.  The character development remains strong as we are introduced to Reza Nazari, an Iranian turned Israeli spy who is part of the Iranian negotiating team; Madeline Hart, a former Russian sleeper agent that has come over to the British side; and Alexei Rozanov, an SVR agent who has been dispatched by the Russian “Tsar” to eliminate Allon.  Other Allon associates appear including the irascible Ari Shamron, the twice former director-general of Israeli intelligence and Allon’s mentor.

Throughout the novel Silva presents background history of individuals and places, be it a snow covered Vienna neighborhood that the Nazis emptied during the war or description of the lives of his characters, like Madeline Hart who was orphaned almost at birth and trained in spy craft and sexual matters in a Russian orphanage to be used as a weapon against powerful men.  Speaking of background history, as the book progresses more and more Allon is convinced that Rozanov and Quinn played a major role in, or actually were responsible for the explosion that killed his son Dani, and resulted in institutionalization of his wife Leah, a number of years before.

Overall, the book is a typical Allon yarn, with some commentary pertaining to the real world of terror and espionage.  New readers will be satisfied and will want to move on to the next book in the series, THE BLACK WIDOW, while returning readers might have to think twice.

THE WARLORD’S SON by Don Fesperman is an amalgam of tribal machinations, hidden agendas, and conflicting personalities played out in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Peshawar, Pakistan, and tribal areas of Afghanistan.  The story is about complex relations among tribal families, a budding relationship between a man and a woman that goes against tradition, the interests of a number of warlords, and two shadowy Americans who seem to manipulate many of the main characters.

The three main characters are Najeeb Azam, a Pakistani educated in the United States who has been banned from his tribe by his father.  Najeeb’s life has been limited following 9/11 by US Consular officials and his father’s decree.  To survive he hires himself out as a guide and interpreter to western reporters who crave information about Pakistan, the Taliban, and the course of events inside Afghanistan.  The second major protagonist is Stanford Kelly, better known as Skelly, a burned out journalist from the American Midwest who seeks to rekindle his career in southwest Asia.  He links up with Najeeb as a means of getting back in the “game,” and the course of their relationship and what they experience form the core of the novel.  The third character, Daliya Qadeer goes against her family’s wishes by becoming involved with Najeeb and she will take any risk to be with him.

Fesperman conveys the brutal dichotomy that is Musharraf’s Pakistan following 9/11.  The Pakistani ISI (Interservices Intelligence) that helped create the Taliban is deeply involved in Najeeb’s life, as are two Americans who seem to be working with the ISI, but it is not really clear what they are up to until the novel’s conclusion.  Skelly was part of a wave of American journalists who descended on Pakistan and Afghanistan after 9/11 as the war between the United States and the Taliban exploded.  At first Najeeb and Skelly are wary of each other, but soon develop a comfort level as they both seemed to be looking for somewhere to take root as their lives seemed to converge.

The author does a superb job providing the sights and smells of the region from Peshawar to the many villages of Afghanistan.  In addition, the archine and duplicitous ISI is introduced and integrated accurately into the story as the “midwife” of the Taliban and the ally of the United States.  The author is dead on when he points out that the ISI’s main security concern is India, and that the Taliban is a tool in that strategy no matter how close or how much aid it receives from the United States.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is how Najeeb’s life seems to come full circle.  Fesperman revisits his childhood and his relationship with his warlord father and an uncle who seems to take care of him.  His father sent him to America for his education for his own reasons and when he returned their relationship collapsed.  To control his son, the ISI would keep him in line.  Because of his relationship with Skelly, and the reporter’s obsession to uncover a major newspaper story, Najeeb will revisit his childhood haunts as he deals with the machinations of the ISI, his father, his uncle, and other warlords as he tries to survive.

Fesperman’s writing is sensitive to the “underworld” that exists in Pakistani and Afghan society, particularly in the tribal areas that abuts Afghanistan where many refugees seek shelter from the Taliban.  Najeeb joins Skelly on a caravan into Afghanistan as the American reporter tries to land one last scoop to satisfy the journalistic blood that pulses in his veins.  The result is a series of mishaps, surprises, and shifting alliances that threaten their lives.

Numerous questions arise as the book unfolds.  What role do Sam Hartley, an American businessman and Arlen Pierce, a cultural attaché from the State Department play?  Is there a strategy that is being developed to capture Osama Bin-Laden?  Can Najeeb’s father be trusted?  What is the ISI really after? Among numerous questions.  The end result will surprise the reader and the books conclusion is somewhat disconcerting.

This is my second go at one of Don Fesperman’s novels, and I look forward to reading others in the future.

One night along the Cuban coast that adjoins the United States naval base at Guantanamo a body washes ashore.  The body that of an American serviceman is found by a Cuban police officer on patrol.  The officer rushes down the hill to chase away an iguana, recognizes that the body he has located is American and realizes how important his find is.  So begins Dan Fesperman’s THE PRISONER OF GUANTANAMO, a book that will capture the reader’s attention immediately and maintain interest as the plot continues to unfold.

Fesperman’s main character is a former Marine and FBI agent named Revere Falk who was fluent in Arabic and was employed by the Pentagon as an interrogator at Guantanamo.  After introducing the reader to the interrogator’s craft, Fesperman discusses a Yemeni detainee named Adran al-Hamdi, who Falk has worked very hard to establish a working relationship with in order to obtain what he believes to be important intelligence.  Al-Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance and was considered a major “head case.”

Once the American corpse is identified as SGT Earle Ludwig, the Pentagon asks Falk for assistance with the investigation into his death.  Falks’s running commentary throughout the novel provides interesting insights into the American approach at GITMO to obtain intelligence and the relationship between the various US intelligence agencies.  As the story progresses Falk is forced to revisit his past, particularly an error he made as a young Marine dealing with Cuban intelligence in Havana.  As Falk’s investigation into Ludwig’s death develops it appears that he may have been murdered.  At this point a number of new characters are introduced.  Pam Cable, Falk’s girlfriend and fellow interrogator, Tim Bokamper, an old friend and FBI agent, and Gonzales Rubiero, an American who lived in Miami Beach, but spied for the Cubans.  Each of these characters plays an important role in addition to the two representatives that the Department of Homeland Security dispatches to GITMO forcing the story in a different direction.

Fesperman provides a number of important insights as the novel builds.  The reader is taken inside al-Hamdi’s head to experience how detainees reacted to their imprisonment.  In addition, Fesperman examines Cuban-American relations particularly in the post 9/11 world.  “Little Havana,” in Miami Beach is explored in the context of the post-Cold War period and is very accurate.

The key aspect of the novel is how its component parts fit together.  How does Falk’s career as a young Marine fit into the investigation of Ludwig’s death and the reaction of other federal agencies?  How does Ludwig’s death relate to Falk’s interrogation of al-Hamdi?  What role does Cuban intelligence play in the events surrounding Ludwig’s death and what is their interest in al-Hamdi?   Finally, why do people close to Falk’s investigation begin to disappear?  Fesperman weaves his answers very carefully as the reader tries to make sense of certain aspects of the novel that seem to unfold in a world of jihadists, Cubans, and other misshapen secrets.  For example, were there “higher ups” in Washington looking for links between Fidel Castro and al-Qaeda as a pretext for who knows what?  The problem for Falk is that every time he feels he has figured out what was going on the tables are turned and he grows even more confused.

This was my first experience reading one of Fesperman’s novels and as a result he has created a new fan!  I am looking forward to reading THE WARLORD’S SON another of his books as soon as I can.

(GITMO, the home of many individuals, both terrorists and non-terrorists)

(The site of Philip Kerr’s new novel, the French Reviera)

In the eleventh installment of Philip Kerr’s thoughtful and entertaining Bernie Gunther series, we find our protagonist ensconced on the French Riviera contemplating suicide.  For those familiar with Gunther’s odyssey through World War I, World War II and the post war world you will not be surprised by his behavior.  Gunther is bored with his life and misses Berlin since he exiled himself to France, and became employed as a concierge at the Grand Hotel du Saint-Sean-Cap.  Gunther’s problem is that he misses his life as a detective, but his exile is about to change when a guest named Harold Heinz Hebel checks into the hotel.  The problem is that Hebel is an alias for Harold Hennig, a former Captain in the Nazi SD Security service, and an accomplished murderer.  It is that recognition by Gunther that Kerr’s new novel THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE pivots.  From that point on as Kerr develops his plot the reader is exposed to Gunther’s sarcastic humor and comments about a range of historical figures from Leopold II, to Gauguin, to numerous Nazi henchmen and British intelligence figures.

Kerr has created a number of scenarios that he develops with his usual skill as a writer and a practitioner of conspiracies.  They begin when Gunther meets the nephew of the British writer, W. Somerset Maugham who is being blackmailed by none other than Harold Hennig.  Maugham, a known homosexual finds out that Hennig has obtained a picture of him with three British spies who were turned by Soviet intelligence, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, and David MacLean.  The picture is extremely compromising sexually and Maugham, even at eighty two years of age is worried about his reputation in England where homosexuality is illegal, and in the United States which is in the throes of the McCarthy hearings.  He asks Gunther to be his agent with Hennig to make sure the transaction is carried out so he has nothing further to worry about.  To show Maugham what he is dealing with, Gunther describes a situation that occurred in Berlin in 1938 when Gunther, no longer a German police detective, is approached by Captain Achim von Frisch, a man who saved his live in Turkey during the Great War.  Frisch is also being blackmailed, by you guessed it, the same Harold Hennig.  It seems that there is a political and military shakeup going on within the Nazi command structure, and another officer, General Freiheir von Fritsch is being accused of being a homosexual.  Frisch, who previously was blackmailed by Hennig to the point of poverty is privy to important information that would clarify the situation.  However, he is afraid, and wants Gunther to investigate and determine how high up in Hitler’s regime this plot reaches before he comes forward.  In the end Hitler achieved his goals and took over as the head of the Reich’s military by stepping over any body that got in his way.

Kerr goes back and forth between Berlin in 1938, Konigsberg in 1944, and the south of France in 1956.  For Gunther they are all related in some manner and they seem to all involve Harold Hennig.  The events that took place for Gunther go a long way in explaining his sarcastic and cynical view of people and life in general.  Apart from the plot, Kerr’s command of German history is excellent, though he does make a minor error by stating that Frederick III built a hunting lodge in Konigsberg in 1690, when in fact he did not assume the throne until 1888.  However, his description of historical figures like Erich Koch, Erich Mielke, Guy Burgess, and the sinking of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff in early 1945, and the use by the CIA and KGB of former Nazis is right on, as is his integration of the 1956 Suez crisis as historical background.

Throughout the book Kerr is at his deceptive best as the novel reeks of disinformation, misdirection, spies, and counterspies, and of course conspiracies enveloped within other conspiracies.  The intricacies of the plot are based upon Maugham’s actual experiences as a British spy during the late 1930s and World War II as the myriad of scenarios keeps the reader engrossed.  Who is really behind the blackmail?  Is it the Russian KGB, is it remnants of the Third Reich, is Hebel acting alone, or is it something else?  Is the British intelligence community the real target? MI5 or MI6?  Does the United States have a role to play?  How does W. Somerset Maugham fit in?  How about the Cambridge Five that was penetrated by Russian intelligence during and after World War II?  How does Bernie Gunther fit into these complex questions?  Why was Gunther’s bridge partner murdered?  Does that fit into the paradigm?  The answers will keep the reader riveted to THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE, and it makes one look forward to Kerr’s next Bernie Gunther novel, PRUSSIAN BLUE.

(The French Rviera, the site of Philip Kerr’s new novel)

Greg Iles begins his latest novel in his Penn Cage trilogy by reintroducing the term “The Bone Tree,” which forms a very important component of his story of the same name.  According to Iles, the Bone Trees’ location was the dumping site of a radical KKK offshoot from the 1960s called the “Double Eagles,” where they deposited the bodies of their victims.  Historically, it may have formed a killing ground that dated to the pre-Columbian years of the Natchez Indians.

The novel itself begins where, NATCHEZ BURNING, Iles’ previous effort ended with Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, MS and a former Houston prosecutor lamenting his decisions that led to the death of Henry Sexton, a journalist who spent decades investigating the deaths of 12 civil rights murders from the 1960s, and Sleepy Johnson, who had witnessed two of those murders and the fire that destroyed all of Sexton’s evidence.  Cage suffers from extreme guilt that he allowed his father, Dr. Tom Cage’s disappearance cloud his judgement, as his father had been accused of murdering his former nurse as well as a Louisiana State trooper, in addition to jumping bail.  With an all-points bulletin with a shoot to kill order facing his father, Penn Cage must figure out how to save his father from himself in an environment of political and legal corruption that dominates the state of Louisiana at all levels.  When an author prepares to write a trilogy they expect that each volume can stand alone.  In this case, despite the fact that Iles’ provides a great deal of background to link the novel with its predecessor, it might prove difficult for the reader to understand certain components of the story without reading the previous book.

Dr. Tom Cage is resigned to his own death.  With a severe heart condition, accused of two murders, on the run for jumping bail, with assassins after him, he has given up until he receives a text from his future daughter-in-law Caitlin Masters.  Masters, the editor of the Natchez Examiner informs Cage that she is pregnant and he realizes that he now has something to live for, another grandchild and possibly a name sake.  At the age of 73 he see himself anew as the patriarch of a larger family.  Having escaped the assassination by two thugs, Tom’s dilemma is what should be his next course of action.  Iles’ novel has many subplots and one of them is how Tom will navigate his situation.  Another is how his son Cage, and Masters will handle events particularly the remnants of violence and corruption existing in Louisiana in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina despite the death of Brody Royal, the perceived puppet mastering murderer from NATCHEZ BURNING.

We learn that the true source of lawlessness in the state aside from the greedy real estate developers, bankers, and politicians whose vision is to rebuild New Orleans in their own image by forcing out blacks from neighborhoods and ethnically cleansing the city in order to make millions of dollars, are elements in the Louisiana State Police (LSP). To achieve their goal they need to control the New Orleans Police Department, employing Forrest Knox, second in command of the LSP, as an ally.  Forrest Knox is the head of the Knox family crime organization who are at the center of the Double Eagle faction, and is involved in a statewide meth operation along with an army of avaricious politicians and hungry police officers that have allowed him to build a criminal network with unrivaled reach and power in the southern part of Louisiana.  As a Lt. Colonel in the Louisiana State Police Knox has tremendous influence on events, but as Head of the Louisiana State Police he would become totally insulated from any legal problems from the FBI or other agencies.  As he tries to achieve his goal by destroying his superior officer the novel becomes a fast ride for the reader as the different threads that Iles has created come together.

One of the threads involves the jurisdictional differences that exist between the FBI, state and county law enforcement.  Each has its own agenda and conflicting interests, for example, John Kaiser, the FBI Special Agent’s investigation of possible links between Tom Cage, the Double Eagles, Carlos Marcello, and the Kennedy assassination permeate the novel.  For Penn Cage and Concordia Parish Sheriff Walker Dennis solving the civil rights murders by bringing down Forrest Knox and the Double Eagles, and exonerating Tom Cage is paramount. The reader is also privy to the inner working of the Knox family operation that includes County Sheriff Billy Knox, and a murdering psychopath, Snake Knox, in addition to the Lt. Colonel in the Louisiana State Police. Each agenda is intertwined with each other, and Iles does a masterful job in creating a constantly evolving scenario that keeps the reader mesmerized.

The book exposes the reader to a great deal of violence, betrayal, menace and at times is very intense.  Despite the fact its genre is crime fiction it does an exceptional job highlighting many aspects of human behavior, especially the tragedy of race relations that dominates our history.  THE BONE TREE also exemplifies the role that the past plays in our lives and how difficult it is to escape its tentacles.  The book is illustrative of a line by William Faulkner: “The past is never dead.  It’s not even past.”  (Washington Post, May 11, 2015)  Iles’ work is illustrative of this theme and to his credit he has created an evocative story that will cause the reader to look forward to the concluding volume of his massive trilogy which is due out later this year or early 2017.

What follows is a great interview conducted by the Christian Science Monitor and Greg Iles in April, 2015.

‘Natchez Burning’ author Greg Iles discusses ‘The Bone Tree,’ the twist-filled sequel

Iles’s new book, ‘The Bone Tree,’ includes an investigation into the JFK assassination. ‘If Oswald did not act alone, then I would say there’s a 95% chance that a conspiracy of the size and type that I laid out in this book is the most likely thing to have happened,’ Iles says.

By Erik Spanberg APRIL 21, 2015

Greg Iles calls himself a 20-year overnight success story. This despite the fact that his first book, published in 1993, hit The New York Times best-seller list.

Iles mentions the possibility of overnight success while discussing a soon-to-be-announced cable TV adaptation of his 2014 epic novel, “Natchez Burning.” He promises a series or miniseries with the production quality of “True Detective” or “Game of Thrones.” Until all the contracts are signed, though, he is forbidden from disclosing which network is buying the rights.

“Natchez Burning,” published last spring, spanned 800 pages and blended the pulse-pounding machinations of a thriller with Southern Gothic elements while dazzling the likes of Ken Follett and Stephen King. AARP Magazine described the atmospherics and narrative as a mash-up of William Faulkner and Stieg Larsson. Most of all, “Natchez Burning” left readers desperate to know what happens next in the lengthy tale of violence, corruption, and racial strife.

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Now comes “The Bone Tree,” the second book in Iles’s trilogy. The novel picks up where the last one left off but veers off in the direction of constant action and twists and turns without answering one of the central questions posed in the earlier book.

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Instead, Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, and Iles’s main character (Penn happens to be both an author and former prosecutor), spends much of his time trying to find his father, a small-town doctor accused of murder, and sorting out whether his family played a role in the death of President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza.

At the same time, conspiracies involving New Orleans mobsters, rogue CIA operatives, and other nasty characters thwart Penn as he teams with crusading reporters and a hell-bent FBI agent in an attempt to solve a string of cold cases from the Civil Rights era.

Late next year or in early 2017, Iles will publish the last book in the trilogy. Whether Penn can save his hometown and his shattered family is one of several prominent questions left to be resolved in the final book.

Penn Cage starred in several stand-alone novels before Iles was in a near-fatal car wreck four years ago in his hometown of Natchez. Doctors kept Iles in a medical coma for eight days after the crash and his injuries included a torn aorta and the loss of his right leg below the knee.

He still struggles with rehab, but his writing career is on a roll. And he remains a member of The Rock Bottom Remainders, a literary garage band featuring Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Stephen King, and Scott Turow, among others.

Iles was the singer and guitarist in his own rock band, Franky Scarlet, after graduating from Ole Miss in 1983. Later, he ditched rock and roll for a career in thrillers, a path similar to the one taken by Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbo.

Before setting off on a book tour, Iles spoke to the Monitor about chasing the ghosts of JFK and Civil Rights victims as well as what’s ahead for the self-proclaimed overnight sensation. Excerpts from our conversation are below.

On his interest in President Kennedy’s assassination:

I really wasn’t [intending to go there] and I’ll tell you what’s funny. There’s a guy who interviewed me for Publishers Weekly [Lenny Picker in 2013]. They did a thing on the 50th anniversary [of the assassination and the fiction and nonfiction books around JFK’s death]. And this guy’s going to kill me. Because he called me and he quoted me a couple of times in the article, but I kept telling him, ‘Look, these books really are not about the Kennedy assassination. I’m really not going there.’

And, then, while re-writing the next book, I found myself doing that [laughs]. I felt so guilty. I thought, this guy is going to think I was lying to him. It’s just that the more I sort of slid southward towards New Orleans and found out more about the [Louisiana crime boss Carlos] Marcello stuff, the more I just couldn’t resist it.

On how much he blends fact and fiction in his depiction of November 1963:

In a general way, I would say that the basic thesis of what I’m putting forth is, if Oswald did not act alone, then I would say there’s a 95% chance that a conspiracy of the size and type that I laid out in this book is the most likely thing to have happened. The fact is that none of these grand conspiracy theories are really even possible.

If you really boil away all the sensationalism and you say what really could have happened and who truly had a motive to kill him, you’re left with a pretty small group of people.

I don’t want to get too much into saying things about the Marcellos or people like that, but I think the points in the book are very well taken, which is we tend to look at the killing of a president as this massive thing of epic proportion. Whereas the guys who had that kind of power and especially at that time, when the kind of scrutiny that exists now did not exist, I think guys like that would not at all have been intimidated taking that kind of action.

Especially since they were embedded in the process to try to assassinate [Cuban dictator Fidel] Castro [before Kennedy was killed]. I think all those things facilitated toward making the killing of a president a mundane thing. I guess what I’m saying is I think [a conspiracy like the one detailed in “The Bone Tree”] could’ve happened. I’m not saying it did happen, but it surely could have, and it’s far more plausible than most of the things [people have suggested].

On why he decided to write a trilogy:

The real sort of Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment with this trilogy came four years ago when I was almost killed on Highway 61 and was in a coma and everything. It happened at a point where I had realized the book had grown beyond the bounds of a single book and that the first book, there was no way it could stand alone, nor could the second stand alone and I was about to have to break all the rules of mainstream fiction.

My publisher was trying to adapt that, they weren’t real happy with it. And that was the process I was in when I got hit by a truck and nearly died. So when I came out of that, I just really no longer gave a damn what the rules were, what the publisher thought or whether it sold. At that point, I said, you know, I’m writing about Mississippi and Louisiana, I’m writing about my family, I’m writing about race and the South and America. When you’re going to do that for real, you can’t worry who gets mad or who doesn’t think it fits in a box. So I just threw away the rule book.

On writers he admires:

I’m one of the main speakers at [a festival] in New York in July. I’ve never met a guy who I always idolized [when I was] a young writer in my career and that’s Nelson DeMille. DeMille’s early work especially. [Now] I’m actually going to get to meet him.

[A few weeks ago] I got to meet Pat Conroy and that was just one of those bucket-list moments. We just talked and we just bonded instantly and we talked on the phone subsequently. Those are some of the little joys you find.

On his main character:

A lot of people have always asked, is Penn Cage me? And I say no. There’s an early character in an earlier novel, “Mortal Fear,” that’s closer to me. Penn sort of began as a Grisham-esque character. He’s an attorney and kind of a noble guy and almost too good to be true. I never set out to write a series at all, but about every seven years, he would come back to me. Before I knew it, there were three [Penn Cage] books and “Natchez Burning’ turned into [a trilogy]. Penn tends to be an observer more than an action hero, but I think in “Natchez Burning,” even though he starts that way, because of the destruction of the image of his father makes him question everything, I think now we’re dealing with a Penn who no longer has his feet on the ground. That’s an exciting thing for the reader.

On “The Bone Tree”:

As the middle book, it had always been sort of a more conventional thriller and made more concessions to genre. I went back and thought, I really don’t want to do that. Because the third book, the conclusion, is better than “Natchez Burning,” that’s how good it is. And the second book I felt like, OK, it’s a good book, but it’s a more conventional thriller and “Natchez Burning” deserves more than that. So that’s why it took a while: I went back and really re-wrote that book.

A lot of the stuff in these books are very close to reality. This isn’t just made-up stuff. [A former New Orleans and Natchez police officer Iles knew] had either a copy or office notes of the entire Jim Garrison Kennedy investigation in his possession over in Ferriday, Louisiana. There are a lot of weird things that went on.