Customer Reviews

Master of the Delta

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first element that always draws me into a Thomas H. Cook novel is his magnificent prose. Lush and musical, it's the perfect vehicle for his tales of buried sin and hidden guilt which often take place in the oldest and most haunted parts of our country.

Master of the Delta is Cook's latest work, and it's a very strong addition to a truly distinguished body of work. Set in a small town in the Mississippi delta in 1954, it's narrated by Jack Branch, the scion of an upper crust family, who, from a somewhat condescending sense of duty, has, like his father before him, become a teacher in the local public high school. Deeply interested in the question of evil in an academic way, he's soon to encounter it in actuality.

Jack learns that one of his more talented students, Eddie Miller, is the son of the notorious "Coed Killer," and encourages him to come to terms with his family's history by writing a paper on his father and his crimes. Eddie pursues his task diligently, and in so doing unearths old secrets that threaten the social order of the town.

But along with his great prose, arresting characters and evocative settings, Cook is a masterful plotter, and events in Master of the Delta unfold in intriguing ways, the book concluding with one of his trademark twists, at once completely unexpected and totally logical. With his complex prose and almost overwhelming sense of the tragic, Cook may not appeal to readers who like their mysteries light and inconsequential, but those who aren't afraid of the dark will appreciate his masterful handling of every literary element and savor Master of the Delta as I did.

The power of teaching is heady for Jack Branch, a privileged young man who grew up motherless on a plantation with his scholarly father. Missing his long-dead wife, the elder Branch has remained isolated at Great Oaks since "the incident", the result of a profound depression that has plagued the man for years. Returning after his pricey education to teach at Lakeland High School, Jack is following in his father's footsteps, returning to the landscape of his youth to share his vision with his unlucky students, limited by means and education. In fact, the class he is lecturing on evil in literature has little to recommend the future, most from poverty-riddled backgrounds, many from a rough area known as the Bridges, one lonely student, Eddie Miller, more profoundly separated from the rest by virtue of his history as the son of a local murderer, the Coed Killer.

Giving the students an assignment to write a paper on an evil person, Branch takes a special interest in the skinny, shy Eddie. Thinking to mentor Eddie in his progress, Branch becomes embroiled in a psychological drama that holds unseen dangers the more involved he becomes with the boy. Cook peoples his dark, gothic story with eccentrics: the elder Branch, surrounded by the former glory of his old life and an impressive library; the beautiful student, Sheila Longstreet, the object of her boyfriend's obsessive affection; the angry boyfriend's sidekick, a menacing shadow; Eddie Miller, the unfortunate son of the local murderer, a boy of few ambitions who appeals to his mentor, Branch, but later develops an independent spirit; and the well-intentioned, if class-conscious Jack Branch, who assigns only noble motives to himself until his baser nature is revealed.

Contrasting the many benefits of entitlement with the hardscrabble lives of students with limited futures, Cook's novel is shrouded in the gloom of centuries past, the fanciful assumptions of a lonely teacher who aspires to a largesse of spirit he learns is stunted by false pride and hurt. The exalted halls of learning do little to protect the protagonist from the insidious flaws of human nature, his grand pretensions proved shallow as events unfold. But Branch remains an observer, secure in his ivory tower as the pawns of fate tumble to the ground in a final act of violence. While the concept is compelling, the journey is often tedious. Given the quality of writing, I might have responded a bit more favorably with fewer pages. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

Sinister forces are at work in a small Southern town as the fates spin, measure, and cut the threads of life, and well-intentioned schemes end in tragedy, in this mystery by Edgar Award-winning novelist Thomas Cook.

In an act of noblesse oblige, Jack Branch, a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and scion of a plantation owner in the Mississippi Delta, returns to his hometown of Lakeland to teach at the local high-school.

In an English course exploring evil, Jack sees potential in Eddie Miller, a student who lives in a hardscrabble section of town. He takes Eddie, the son of "the Coed Killer" under his wings and becomes his mentor. As events unfold, however, we see that no good deed goes unpunished.

Meanwhile, Jack's wealthy father pens a biography of Abraham Lincoln, "Sorrow's Last Full Measure," and works on a roman a clef, kept under lock and key, containing startling secrets of the Branch family.

A romantic idealist, Jack himself becomes entangled in the coils of evil, for silence is not always golden; it can also be yellow, if one should speak up and fails to do so.

Clark's novel will appeal especially to the literary-minded, for he alludes often to authors classic and modern. But he doesn't hold back on the suspense, as readers will discover even in the books' closing paragraphs.

Thomas H. Cook revisits familiar territory in Master of the Delta: The very first paragraph tells you this will be a tragedy of Greek melodramatic proportions. He does not disappoint. In this beautifully written novel, Cook again explores his well worn themes of family conflicts, lost love, tortured souls, misunderstanding with devastating outcomes, winding down to the appropriate somber ending. I especially liked his use of time changes and different voices troughout the story. The plot twist at the very end also took me by surprise. Some may find these themes excessively dark, but that is precisely why fans of Cook come back again and again for another dose. Nobody can put together a modern tragic/mystery like Thomas H. Cook.

If you've gotten this far down in the reviews, you've probably been able to read the plot summaries. So, I'll just cut straight to my review as to its merits.

I read this book because it got a starred review from PW, which frequently has the effect of raising expectations too high - to expect a 5-star read. However, from start to finish I felt like I was reading a young adult novel or one that would eventually end up on school reading lists. For while a real-life school might not support an entire course on evil, the discussion of what constitutes evil (and good) might be of interest to high schoolers along with discussions the novel could generate on good judgment and decision-making, class differences, youth and innocence, the support or lack thereof within families, did the main character's stumble equal his "reward" in life and on and on.

But for adults past the age of 40, many of the book's revelations (such as "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or "does anyone ever know where anything will lead" or, for that matter, the opening sentence that having lived "the good life" of private schools and lemonade on the veranda served up by the help might just lead to a certain naivete on the part of the main character) may lead adult readers to eventually smack themselves in the head and say, "well that seems obvious."

Nevertheless, the characters are very well-drawn, the dialogue believable, and even with the never-ending supply of foreshadowing, of perhaps because of it, I was still keenly engaged until the final page as to what would happen to all of them. And I did like the author's use of flashback and trial notes that told us what happened to whom throughout the novel because it was creative and solved the problem of trying to tell what happened to all the supporting cast in the final chapter.

If you like your fiction dark and tragic but with a likeable main character who is harder on himself than necessary, then you will enjoy the book. It is well-plotted with enough tricks up the author's sleeve to hold your interest if not offering much that hasn't been said before.

I've read virtually all of Thomas H. Cook's suspense novels and have always enjoyed his masterful writing and complex plots with unexpected twists. MASTER OF THE DELTA has the same fine writing and expert plotting but several strands of the book did not seem genuine or plausible to me. The book does has many characteristics of a novel written in the Southern Gothic style which is appropriate to its Delta setting.

The story is told in flashbacks to 1954 from the present day by the narrator, Jack Branch. Jack was a small town Mississippi high school teacher in his twenties when the central tragedy in the novel occurred. At the time Jack was teaching a special interest course in evil that had about twelve very disparate students in it several who were major players in the tragic outcome. This is one of the more implausible aspects of the novel as it seems unlikely that such a class would have been taught or taught in the quite titillating manner Cook describes in that time period or part of the country. It seems even more unlikely that these particular students would have all signed up for it. At any rate it turns out one of the twelve students is the son of a notorious local murderer and young Mr. Branch quite unwisely decides he should take a special interest in helping this rather shunned young man which has surprising consequences. There is also a subplot about a doomed romance between Jack, who is prep school educated and from the privileged "planter class", and another young teacher from the "wrong side of the tracks." Those threads and some others are all tied together neatly if tragically by the book's close.

As in many of Thomas H. Cook's previous books literary allusions to great writers such as Orwell, Melville and Kafka abound lifting the style of the book up a bit higher than the average mystery/thriller. The final twist at the very end of the story surprised me but I did not find the circumstances particularly convincing making this final revelation seem a bit like a ploy.

The master of the genre, Thomas H. Cook, is back with another well-written, well-plotted crime novel with fascinating and gritty characters. For Cook fans this book is well worth the wait. From a modern setting, the author takes you back into a dark past and carries you into a future that is not fully clear as to its meaning until well into the book. As you read, you discover how the future, in which the author catapults you, allows to you to follow the flawed characters as their lives unfold in strange and unlikely ways.

His story piques your interest from the first page as he describes his main character, Mr. Jack Branch, a schoolteacher in the classic sense. He has an unusual array of students in his first class of the day. The students and this classroom experience is his particular focus.

Jack takes great delight in covering a macabre range of stories, and his intent is to take his students into reading of the evil, dark, and sinister. His stories delve into cruel and heartless characters that deserve the worst possible fate, and those who have suffered at the hands of the merciless who deliver misery in its many forms. This bloody macabre focus in a different story would seem out of place. However, Cook weaves this shocking detail into his story with little effort that makes an immense impact.

Jack is a proper and foppish man. His personality is vividly dramatized in the moments and times spent with his father, the Master of Great Oaks.

You'll discover the relationship Jack has with his father becomes borderline estranged as Eddie Miller, one of his first-period students, develops an interest (albeit at Jack's urging) with his father. The purpose is for Eddie to gain insight into his dark past, a past that only Jack's father can shed light. The mystery continues from there and makes for great summer reading.

Cook's crime writing style is unique. You'll discover after reading several pages Cook swiftly transports you into a delightful storytelling rhythm, one in which you can easily become accustom.

Armchair Interviews says: Long-time Cook fans will be thrilled and this book will make many new fans.

What a master we have in Thomas H. Cook. He is one whose new releases I read immediately.

Jack Branch comes from prominence in the Mississippi Delta. After graduating from Vanderbilt College, Jack teaches a class on evil at Lakeland School. The children are from the poor side of town known as the Bridges.

It comes to Jack's attention that one of his students is the son of a notorious local killer they call the Co-ed Killer. While the boy, Eddie Burns, is writing a report on his father for the class on evil, Jack is broadsided by an even more startling revelation about Eddie, one that will rock Jack's family to it's foundation.

A story that is truly that - a story. Cook travels deep into the very being of the people of Master of the Delta until the darkness is all that remains. Be prepared to be swept away.

It took a long time for me to warm up to this book. I don't know why; it's not that the subject (evil) disturbed me. It's not that the main characters weren't well developed. It wasn't the writing style. Hard to put my finger on exactly why I didn't jump into the book sooner, but boy, that ending!! All I can say is that I found it incredible!!!

I've never read any books by Thomas H. Cook before. And considering that he has written over 24 books, including this one, that is really a reflection on me as a reader more than it is him as a writer.

Master of the Delta is about 4 main characters: Jack Branch, a teacher at a high school; Eddie Miller, son of a notorious local killer dubbed "The Coed Killer," Luther Miller, said infamous killer. Luther is not physically around during the story, but he continues to remain a presence in the town, invading the lives of all those who lived during his crime and continuing to be a part of Eddie's life. The fourth character who is ever present throughout the book? That would be "evil." And evil shows it self in many forms.

Jack is from a rather well established family in the town of Lakeland. He's had the benefit of a good education and materially never wanted for much. His mom died when he was few weeks old and he was raised by his dad, who is distant as a father. He's also a teacher at Lakeland High School running a class on evil in history. Eddie is a child of the the "Bridges," an area of Lakeland where the lower working class dwell. He's a student in Jack's class.

As an assignment, Jack has his students write a paper about someone (real or fictional) who is evil. Eddie decides to write about his father, The Coed Killer. As the storey unfolds Jack takes Eddie under his wing, as a sort of protege. He has a notion that Eddie is more than just the son of a killer. Jack decides that Eddie needs to find out the truth about his father, even if that truth leads Eddie to find out that his dad really was the monster he has been portrayed to be. Eddie also learns about his father, the man he really was. Jack learns a few lessons about his own life and the kind of man he really is.

There were a few places (especially towards the end of the book) where I thought the story line was going in one direction and then I was pulled in a different direction. I expected one thing to happen, and then Cook caused something else to happen. And his turn of events was better than those I had imagined.

The notion of "evil" runs throughout this book in many ways and I found myself asking a lot of questions about evil. For instance, was it evil for Jack to assign this type of paper to his class, knowing about Eddie's family tree? Is evil hereditary? Are there degrees of evil? And what do you do with the realization that you are evil, or capable of doing evil things?

While initially I was not caught up in the book, I am very glad that I stuck it out and finished it. I thought the ending was incredible and when I finished it all I could do was close the book and say "Wow!" The back cover of the book had a quote from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which reads: "Cook writes powerful layered novels with original heroes who choose to walk down paths that quietly, inexorably, lead them to even darker places in the human heart, and ultimately to breathtaking and revelatory surprises at their journey's end." All I can add to that is "Amen!!"

The Master of the Backstory has done it again -- Cook has created a novel infused with a mystery that does not become solved until the very end. As I said in a review of another of his books, it is impossible to second guess this guy. His stories, set in the present, have been set in motion by events of the past, but every angle is not revealed until the final page, despite references to the outcomes of how the lives of subsidiary characters pan out, indicating that the story is being told from a perspective even further in the future.