Turning Angel [Import] [Paperback]

Greg Iles (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Coronet Books (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340833726
• ISBN-13: 978-0340833728
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,127,173 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

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Beginning, Not So Great Ending, March 22, 2006

By 

Sarah Lynn (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Turning Angel: A Novel (Hardcover)

Other than the fact that I figured out who the killer was before page 10, this book started out wonderfully. I loved the intensity and could not put it down. However the last 100 pages fell reluctantly short by far. I mean honestly, how many people can stumble across one dead body!? Very unrealistic. The whole younger woman older man scenario was stretching it a bit too. I understand a younger girl falling for an older man, but not EVERY girl in the town. It got a bit out of control at times, and turned a little sleazy at others. Overall I might recommend it, but I have definitely read better.

70 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PURE ILES - POWERFUL AND UNPUTDOWNABLE, December 19, 2005

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Turning Angel: A Novel (Hardcover)

With seamless, suspense filled plotting and dialogue so crisp that it crackles, Greg Iles (Blood Memory, The Footprints of God) delivers another surprise packed story. Turning Angel is a thought provoking thriller as it reveals the dark side of high school life today, educating many as it spotlights the choices and crises faced by our youth. It's pure Iles, powerful and unputdownable.

Penn Cage, writer and attorney, has returned to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi to raise his young daughter, Annie. He's widowed and has had an off again - on again relationship with a younger woman on a high career curve. More than age, distance tends to separate them. Penn has also returned to his childhood friend, Dr. Andrew Elliott, Rhodes scholar, internist, a "golden boy, a paragon of everything small town America holds to be noble, and by unwritten law the town will crucify him with a hatred equal to their betrayed love."

Both men serve on the board of a private school, a bastion of learning that produces such outstanding students as 17-year-old Kate Townsend, class Valedictorian, tennis ace, beautiful, soon to attend Harvard. She is the best of the best - and she is found raped and murdered, her body discovered in St. Catherine's Creek.

That's enough of a shock for one evening, but Penn receives a double whammy when Drew confesses that he loved Kate and had been having an affair with her. He had planned to leave his wife, had even placed a down payment on a house in Cambridge where he and Kate would live.

As a friend, it takes Penn some time to mentally accept Drew's confession; as an attorney he knows that in Mississippi, due to Kate's age, Drew can be arrested for statutory rape. Even worse, as the full impact of what he has heard sinks in, Penn realizes that his friend may well be accused of murder.

District Attorney Shad Johnson, a black man, can hardly wait. Born in Natchez, he grew up in Chicago and returned to Natchez to run for mayor. He lost that election but he's determined not to lose another - sending a rich white man to death row and the attendant headlines would serve his political ambitions well.

Penn has little time to mull over his friend's options before he receives a call from Drew saying that someone has called demanding $20,000 or he'll tell the world about Drew's affair with Kate. The anonymous caller tells Drew to put a bag with the money on the fifty yard line of the school's stadium. Penn tells Drew not to go near the stadium, but he knows better - grabbing a gun he drives to the school in search of his friend.

What ensues is a nightmare scene like no other as the pair find themselves being shot at by not one but two people. When the money bag is picked up, Drew and Penn begin a futile chase that nearly is the death of both of them. And all of this before page 55!

It soon becomes obvious that Penn is up against some formidable foes - not only is Shad Johnson eager to pin the murder on Drew, but he's joined by Sheriff Billy Byrd and Judge
Arthel Minor. Many of the townspeople are developing the mentality of a lynch mob, and Drew's wife is filing for an ugly divorce. What becomes patently obvious is that if Penn has any chance of saving his friend, he'll have to find Kate's murderer himself.

Author Iles has a gift for developing strong ancillary characters - they're etched with precision and color. There is Mia, Kate's classmate and Penn's baby sitter, who guides Penn through the murky corridors of drug wheeling and dealing at the respected school; Marko, an exchange student who grew up in a war zone; and Ellen, Drew's vengeful, addicted wife.

While Turning Angel is without a doubt a first-rate thriller, it is also a mind numbing story of the loss of innocence. An innocence never to be found again.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lurid and Overblown -- The Weakest Iles Book I have Read, January 15, 2007

By 

Thriller Lover (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Turning Angel : A Novel (Hardcover)

In terms of pure writing talent, I think it's hard to beat Greg Iles. He has the remarkable ability to hook a reader into a gripping story from page one. Iles knows how to write a compelling page-turner better than almost anybody. I am a big fan of Iles' work, and encourage readers to read some of Iles' earlier work, especially THE QUIET GAME and DEAD SLEEP.

I think the flaw of Iles' work is his strong tendency to design plots that are sensationalistic and over-the-top. This flaw became particularly particularly apparent when I read TURNING ANGEL. The storyline of this novel is not even remotely believable, and is overstuffed with a lot of coincidences and contrivances. Much of the dialogue is stilted and preachy. As a result, many scenes come across as more melodramatic than effective. Imagine a hypersexed version of "Peyton's Place" and you have this book.

In the end, TURNING ANGEL fails because there are very few likable characters. All the people in this book are self-absorbed, self-indulgent and amoral, with the exception of the main character, Penn Cage. The "victim" in this book, whom Cage is fighting for, is a completely unsympathetic 40-year old man who has a romantic relationship with a 17-year old girl. Not only that, but he's planning to walk away from his family (including his young son) to run away with this girl. So why should I care about this guy? In the end, I really didn't care about what happened to him.

Iles' depiction of high school life also seems to be based on sensationalized tabloid stories of raves, rampant sex and casual drug use. None of the teenagers seem believable. All the high school girls talk like 40-year olds, and seem more than willing to hook up with middle-aged men, all of whom are portrayed as chick magnets (Penn Cage pretty much has to fight off women with a stick). Much of this sounds like wishful thinking on Iles' part, and bears little resemblance to reality.

Iles' is usually good at writing women, but most of the women in this story pretty much serve as sex toys for the male characters. There's a lecture at the end of this book about modern morality, but it pretty much falls flat due to the 500 pages of graphic, over-the-top sexuality that preceded it. In the end, Iles seems to be bemoaning the moral character and lost innocence of the young, but his moralizing eventually becomes drawn out and tiresome.

In short, this book was just too lurid and silly for my tastes. My advice is to skip this novel, and read Iles' earlier work, which is far superior to this misfire.