Quiet Game [Paperback]

Greg Iles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2000

If anyone knows Death, Penn Cage does. He, himself, has sent 16 men to their fate as District Attorney, and killed one by his own hand. And now his beautiful young wife is gone too, leaving him alone with their young daughter. He decides to go home; home means Natchez, Mississippi, and the ghosts of his past. There he stumbles over a long-forgotten crime - the death of a black man in '68 - which could explain not only his own life, but that of the whole community. A community which seems to have been playing the quiet game for the last 30 years...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Is there space in the overcrowded courtroom for one more writer of sharp, very suspenseful legal thrillers? Yes--if that writer is Greg Iles, who has proven in such varied efforts as Black Cross, Mortal Fear, and Spandau Phoenix that he knows how to squeeze the last drop of suspense out of all sorts of situations.

Iles immediately makes us feel both sympathy and empathy for his glossy hero, Penn Cage--a former ace Texas prosecutor turned suspense novelist whose sales are up there in the John Grisham Himalayan range.

Trying to cope with the recent death of his wife, Cage takes his 5-year-old daughter to Florida's Disney World, where the child sadly sees visions of her mother everywhere in the fantasy-filled environment. Wouldn't a trip to his parents' stately home in Natchez be more soothing for all concerned? Wrong, as it turns out--and before Cage can catch his breath, he's deeply involved in several dangerous matters. His father, a dedicated doctor, is being blackmailed for a past mistake in judgment, and a powerful judge (who just happens to be the father of Penn's high school sweetheart) has a nasty personal agenda of his own. Then there's the unsolved 1968 murder case of a black man, which Cage insists on reopening with the help of an attractive, ambitious newspaper publisher.

Iles does for Natchez what John Berendt did for Savannah in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, creating a gothic Southern landscape where elegance and depravity walk hand in hand. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Although it takes place in Natchez, Miss., and is flavored with the violence and seamy undertones of a Southern Gothic, this fourth thriller by Iles (Spandau Phoenix) owes just as much to a familiar parallel universe where wealthy male lawyers double as tragic heroes, women are invariably smart and attractive, and trials are by definition "high profile." After his wife's death, Penn Cage, a former Houston prosecutor and a bestselling suspense novelist, retreats to his parents' home in Natchez with his grieving young daughter. The healing process is interrupted when Cage learns that someone is blackmailing his father, a saintly family doctor who once made a lethal mistake. In tracing the source of his father's moral dilemma, Cage stumbles upon a trail of lies surrounding the unsolved murder of a black man in 1968. He determines to reopen the case, even though his antebellum hometown is smoldering with racial tension. With the assistance of Caitlin Masters, the attractive, smart and ambitious publisher of the local newspaper, Cage gradually uncovers an intricate conspiracy that reaches up to the highest levels of the FBI. Forced to confront powerful Judge Leo Marston, who nearly destroyed his father in pursuing an unrelated, unfounded malpractice accusation decades before, Cage must also face Marston's daughter, Livy, his old high school sweetheart, who tries to persuade Cage to let sleeping dogs lie. It is difficult at times to sympathize with Cage, who proselytizes about truth, justice and obligation, yet destroys evidence to protect his father and fails to properly shield his loved ones as he single-mindedly pursues the case. Still, this ably crafted, richly atmospheric legal thriller is engrossing, and readers will forgive Iles's protagonist a few shortcomings. Agent, Aaron Priest. Major ad/promo; 15-city author tour; British rights to Hodder Headline; audio rights to Recorded Books. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Hodder Pb (July 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340686030
• ISBN-13: 978-0340686034
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 1.4 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (193 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,684,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Greg Iles was born in 1960 in Germany where his father ran the US Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983 he performed for several years with the rock band Frankly Scarlet and is currently member of the band The Rock Bottom Remainders. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about war criminal Rudolf Hess, was published in 1993 and became a New York Times bestseller. Iles went on to write ten bestselling novels, including Third Degree, True Evil, Turning Angel, Blood Memory, The Footprints of God, and 24 Hours (released by Sony Pictures as Trapped, with full screenwriting credit for Iles). He lives in Natchez, Mississippi.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smoldering and Refreshing, January 11, 2000

By 

Timothy F. Halloran (Medfield, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Quiet Game (Hardcover)

Greg Iles has possibly the greatest range of any current suspense novelist: WWII, Internet Sex, Secrets of the Deep South... Iles weaves into his books the historical texture of Caleb Carr, double the plot twists of Grisham, and thrice the build-up of Crichton. Speaking of those two, they should be reminded there are writers like Iles who put in the effort to allow a book to stand on its own merits without the carrot of a movie deal.

Despite Iles' harsh characterization of my native Boston (perhaps he is as misinformed of New England as he believes I am of his home) I became entranced by his use of setting as character and his portrayal of imperfect heroes and revered heels. He uses enough misleading foreshadowing to annoy me into staying up late to try to come to a conclusion.

I believe Black Cross was his best work, this his second, Mortal Fear third and Spandau Phoenix fourth. Funny that most people have read only Spandau Phoenix. I do have one complaint - please hurry up on your next book. Stephen King may be from dreaded New England, but for God's sake, at least he puts out a book every now and then! Maybe then more would learn there are great alternatives to the latest drivel from the big boys.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced Reading, October 24, 2002

By 

Virginia Lore "rumtussle" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Quiet Game (Paperback)

Nothing gets in the way of the story in The Quiet Game, a suspenseful page-turner that keeps the pace through over 400 pages.

Penn Cage, a prosecutor from Houston and an author of legal thrillers, returns to his boyhood home in Natchez, Mississippi to help his daughter Annie recover from his wife's death. In an interview with an ambitious local journalist, he mentions the Del Payton case, a racial murder that has remained unsolved for thirty years.

Suddenly Cage finds himself in the midst of a storm of racial tensions, crime and political intrigue in which all the major suspects are playing The Quiet Game, a game of waiting to see who breaks first.

Greg Iles has done a wonderful job writing a book that is hard to put down. Not only is it well-plotted, but the characters are likable and the setting is well-established. The swamps of Natchez yield not only old grudges, but new insights about race relations as Cage works to bring the murderer to justice. Definitely a 5-star read.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars John Grisham wants to be like Greg Iles when he grows up!, December 15, 1999

By 

Dave (Buffalo, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Quiet Game (Hardcover)

Not that I have any problem with John Grisham, but he seems to be compared quite often to Iles and I honestly don't see it. Grisham, although sometimes entertaining, tends to write screenplays rather than novels. The Quiet Game, although as familiar as Grisham in landscape, takes you on an absolute roller coaster of intrigue with a diverse cast of players leaving you with an uncontrollable passion to continue turning pages.

Parts of this tale are certainly predictable, who the bad guys are is no secret, and the majority of the plot is far fetched,... but isn't that what fiction is supposed to be all about? Particularly fiction in the thriller genre?

Iles has a gift for making even the predictable components of the story exciting to read as well as taking ordinary dialog and making it compelling. His use of the first person narrative, which I am not often a fan of, was an excellent choice for unfolding the story in a Whodunnit fashion that grips you and steadily immerses you into Natchez Mississippi and the heart of this story.

This is Iles' 4th book, and very different from the rest, and I loved them all. He's just replaced Crichton as my personal favorite author. I recommend him to anybody.