Sometimes the price of justice is a good man's soul.
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Natchez Burning
trilogy returns with an electrifying tale of friendship, betrayal, and
shattering secrets that threaten to destroy a small Mississippi town.
**"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
When Marshall McEwan left his Mississippi hometown at eighteen, he vowed
never to return. The trauma that drove him away spurred him to become
one of the most successful journalists in Washington, DC. But as the
ascendancy of a chaotic administration lifts him from print fame to
television stardom, Marshall discovers that his father is terminally
ill, and he must return home to face the unfinished business of his
past.
On arrival, he finds Bienville, Mississippi very much changed. His
family's 150-year-old newspaper is failing; and Jet Talal, the love of
his youth, has married into the family of Max Matheson, one of a dozen
powerful patriarchs who rule the town through the exclusive Bienville
Poker Club. To Marshall's surprise, the Poker Club has taken a town on
the brink of extinction and offered it salvation, in the form of a
billion-dollar Chinese paper mill. But on the verge of the deal being
consummated, two murders rock Bienville to its core, threatening far
more than the city's economic future.
An experienced journalist, Marshall has seen firsthand how the corrosive
power of money and politics can sabotage investigations. Joining forces
with his former lover--who through her husband has access to the secrets
of the Poker Club--Marshall begins digging for the truth behind those
murders. But he and Jet soon discover that the soil of Mississippi is a
minefield where explosive secrets can destroy far more than injustice.
The South is a land where everyone hides truths: of blood and children,
of love and shame, of hate and murder--of damnation and redemption. The
Poker Club's secret reaches all the way to Washington, D.C., and could
shake the foundations of the U.S. Senate. But by the time Marshall
grasps the long-buried truth about his own history, he would give almost
anything not to have to face it.
