THE BONE TREE is better than NATCHEZ BURNING. It will be a while so just savor the sweetness of a good story brilliantly told.

When THE BONE TREE ends you immediately wonder when the third book will be published. Race relations, adultery, murder, parenthood and friendship are all smashed together to form a searing saga of remorse and revenge. These are some of the best characters he has ever created and his plot is southern drama at its most traumatic. THE BONE TREE is very lengthy but each page is raging with fever and fervor. Greg Iles has long been one of my favorite writers and he is certainly at his best with this series. I think it would be impossible to understand the events in THE BONE TREE if you have not read NATCHEZ BURNING. They are better if you have read the previous book(s) but you can usually glean enough from the new material to catch you up on the evolving story. Usually author’s write the books of a trilogy to be stand alones. Penn is desperate to find his father and to protect him but Tom has decided to handle things on his own and doesn’t even let Penn know where he is. Tom Cage, is on the run from the State Police because he is accused of murdering his nurse as well as a state trooper. They don’t like the investigating these two are doing into past murders in the area. Both Penn and Caitlin are in danger of being hurt or even killed by a secret group known as the Double Eagles. He is now engaged to Caitlin Masters, the editor of “The Examiner”, Natchez’ most influential newspaper. He is a widower with an eleven year old daughter.

The central character is Penn Cage, lawyer, author and mayor of Natchez Mississippi. It is full of advances in the plot and development of the characters. THE BONE TREE does not follow the filler path. The first book is the set up the second is the filler the third is the highly anticipated conclusion. In many instances the middle book of a trilogy is basically full of filler. Now he has come forth with the second novel, THE BONE TREE, and it matches, or even outdoes, the first story in excitement and drama. Ken Follett pulled it off with his last set of novels, and Greg Iles got off to a good start with his novel NATCHEZ BURNING. When an author announces he is writing a trilogy of books just so it can contain his full story, one’s first thought is it had better be a good tale to stretch over that length. Cover of THE BONE TREE photo courtesy of William Morrow

The bone tree book