Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles

Good morning, everyone! Today I'm kicking off the TLC blog tour for Greg Iles's Mississippi Blood!

For those of you who haven't read the first two books, Natchez Burning and The Bone Tree, you should probably skip this post. Instead, check out one of the previous reviews (depending on whether you've read any of them) and run out to your bookstore!

Penn Cage is suffering and desperate - desperate for vengeance. His girlfriend is dead, as is the reporter who was set on outing Mississippi's Double Eagles. And Penn's father has an undeniable link to the minds behind some of Mississippi's most brutal hate crimes. But that connection still isn't clear. As Dr. Tom Cage awaits trial for the alleged murder of his one time assistant and possible lover, Penn is determined to see the Double Eagles fall and clear his father's name. But the lies and secrets of Mississippi's history run deep and have already claimed so many lives. Will Penn's be next?

Greg Iles's explosive trilogy comes to a close with this final installment. (Note, this trilogy is part of the larger Penn Cage series.)

This trilogy is really an epic - and successful - attempt to fairly and accurately cover what is such a dark piece of southern history. In a recent article in Mississippi Today, Iles speaks to some of the inspiration and drive in telling these stories.

And while it should never be mistaken that this - the tale told throughout the three books - is indeed a story, its roots are definitely in the troubled history of the south. As I mentioned in the Natchez Burning post, Sexton was based on an actual reporter whose mission was one and the same - uncovering crimes that have thus far been swept under the rug.

While it's impossible to write a review of Mississippi Burning without some spoilers of the other two, I definitely don't want to ruin your experience with this third and final piece. Especially since it just released TODAY! I will say that all of the points I made about the previous two - the careful attention to detail, the intricate plotting, the almost ridiculously fast pacing (in a good way) - still apply. And all of the threads and questions of the previous two installments are brought to a satisfactory close.

The characters that have taken us through these tomes - all 2,299 pages - are wonderful. They're rich and flawed, drawn with such depth that they literally leap off the pages. And honestly, they'd have to if you're going to stick with them for that much reading time! (I should mention too that while you're reading those pages, Iles himself spent eight years writing them.) Trust me when I say it's well worth it.

If you haven't read Iles before, you are missing out. If you haven't read any part of the trilogy - then what are you doing still reading this post?! - hit up your local bookstore and buy all of them, or any of them you're missing, today!

And if you're determined to start at Penn's beginning (you can definitely read the trilogy without having read the first few Penn books) here's the full series list for you:

The Quiet Game
Turning Angel
The Devil's Punchbowl
Natchez Burning
The Bone Tree
Mississippi Blood

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Greg Iles you can visit his website here. You can also like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble