Greg Iles, Natchez Burning, Vol 1 of Trilogy, A Book Report
Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
A Book Report by Bobby Everett Smith
Spoiler Alert
November 14, 2017
Setting
The first volume of the Natchez Burning Trilogy is set in the MId 1960’s-to present day in Mississippi, Louisiana and other parts of the deep South during the time of desegregation, the Vietnam war, and assassinations of some of our country’s top leaders like John F. Kenney, President, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
Characters
Penn Cage, Mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, ex-prosecutor in Houston, son of Dr. Tom Cage. Also, a successful novelist.
Dr. Tom Cage, beloved physician in Natchez, Mississippi, father of Penn Cage. In practice for 50 years. Lover of Viola Turner for a short time in the 1960’s. Former combat medic in the Korean war.
Viola Turner, black nurse to Dr. Cage in Natchez, Mississippi during the 1960’s.
Caitlin Masters, fiancée of Penn Cage and publisher/reporter of the Natchez Examiner, which was owned by her father, John Masters.
Special Agent John Kaiser, head of the FBI in Natchez, MI and leader of the team working with Penn Cage against the KKK and the Double Eagle.
Carlos Marcello, mob leader of criminal empire located in New Orleans. possibly leader behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
KKK, the Ku Klux Klan, an anti-black, racist organization formed after the Civil War to oppose race integration
Double Eagle, a violent offshoot of the KKK, working in Natchez, Mississippi and throughout the South, responsible for lynching, tortures, murders, rapes, kidnapping and assassinations from the MId-1960’s to the present day.
Glenn Morehouse, charter member of the Double Eagle in Natchez, Mississippi.
Henry Sexton, reporter of the Concordia Beacon, who has been investigating racial murders for over 30 years in Natchez, Mississippi.
Jimmy Revels, young black man, murdered by the Double Eagle in the 1960’s with his remains left in the Bone Tree, in the swamps out from Natchez.
Luther Davis, another young black man murdered by the Double Eagle. Used as bait to lure Robert Kennedy to Natchez where he would be a target for assassination.
Lincoln Turner, black son of Viola Turner and possible son of Dr. Tom Cage. Arrived in Natchez accusing Dr. Cage of murder of his mother. A lawyer from Chicago.
Brody Royal, local millionaire, and power broker. Covert leader of the Double Eagles.
Frank Knox, founder and leader of the Double Eagle and possible shooter of John F. Kennedy in Dallas assassination.
Forrest Knox, son of Frank Knox and Chief of the Louisiana State Patrol, LSP, and candidate to be Superintendent of the Louisiana State Patrol.
John Masters, father of Caitlin Masters and owner of 27 newspapers throughout the south.
Shadrach Johnson, black District Attorney of Natchez, with a long history of antipathy with Penn Cage.
Walt Garrity, former Texas Ranger, friend of Dr. Tom Cage with whom he had worked as medics in the Korean War.
Captain Ozan, subordinate to Forrest Knox on the Louisiana State Patrol. Helped Forrest enforce murders, kidnappings, and tortures carried out by the local police.
Mrs. Virginia Sexton, Henry Sexton’s mother.
The Bone Tree, a long-rumored dumping grounds of dead bodies that had been murdered by the Double Eagle.
Annie Cage, 11-year-old daughter of Penn Cage, granddaughter of Dr. Tom Cage.
Sheriff Walker Dennis, Sherriff of Concordia Parish in Louisiana. Ally and friend to Penn Cage and Caitlin Masters.
Pooky Wilson, a black man buried at the Bone Tree. Killed by Double Eagle group. Lover to Katy Royal.
Snake Knox, original member of the Double Eagle. A racist, sadist and sociopath.
Sleepy Johnston, aka Gates Brown, killed in fire at Brody Royal’s house trying to help rescue Caitlin and Penn.
Dr. Drew Elliot, doctor at Tom Cage’s office.
Colonel MacKiever, Superintendent of the Louisiana State Patrol, and target of Forrest Knox who is trying to replace him in the top position of the State Police. Ex Texas Ranger and friend of Walt Garrity.
Carmelita, Walt Garrity’s girlfriend back in Texas.
Sonny Thornfield, one of the original Double Eagle.
Billy Knox, son of Snake and head of the Louisiana drug distribution ring.
Claude Devereux, attorney for Forrest Knox.
Randall Regan, husband to Brody Royal’s daughter, enforcer for Brody. Killed in Brody’s mansion during the attack on Caitlin and Penn.
The Story
This novel is fictional, but it is based on many unsolved race murders which took place around Natchez, Mississippi from the MId-1960’s to the current day. The characters in these three novels are created from reported facts, law enforcement records, and rumors that abound in the vicinity.
In 1965, the Civil War was supposed to have been over for 100 years, but the racial hatred and bigotry of some of the southern white folks was still rampant. The police and the Ku Klux Klan were often the same. Judges and other prominent people supported the KKK and White Supremacists.
Albert Norris, a black man, ran a music store in Natchez, but on the side, he allowed mixed-race sex in the back of his store. White men and black women and the reverse.
Brody Royal and Snake Knox, leaders of the Klan, showed up at the music store. They poured gasoline on the floor and Frank Knox came in with a flame-thrower to set off the arson. They killed Albert and destroyed his store.
Frank Knox had higher ambitions than just killing black people who offended him in some way. He formed a spin-off of the KKK to create assassinations, rapes, and lynching. It was called the Double Eagles. All the charter members of the group were given a $20 gold piece which was their ID. Initial targets were three nationally prominent politicians, John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. They were all marked for assassination by the Double Eagles. JFK was murdered in Dallas in 1963. Two more to go.
The FBI suspected but had not proven that Frank Knox was one of two trigger-men at the Dallas shooting of the President of the United States. They continued their investigation to prove who the actual shooters were.
In 1968, two local black men were murdered and left to decay at a place in the Lusahatcha Swamp known as the Bone Tree. One of these men, Jimmy Revels, was the brother of Viola Turner, Dr. Cage’s nurse and later mistress. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were also assassinated that year.
In 2005, Penn Cage is Mayor of Natchez. His father, Dr. Tom Cage, is the beloved doctor of blacks and whites from Natchez for the past 37 years. Viola Turner was once Dr. Cage’s nurse and they had gotten into a romantic involvement before she moved to Chicago where she lived for the last 40 years. She now had cancer and had returned to Natchez to die, possibly with the help of Dr. Cage, whom she might ask to administer drugs to help her avoid the painful death that can come with cancer.
Shad Johnston is the Adams County District Attorney and at the request of Lincoln Turner, Viola’s son, he has begun to charge Dr. Cage with murder, and not just assisted suicide, but pre-meditated murder which can carry the death sentence. When Penn Cage hears that his father is facing capital murder charges, he swings into action to protect him at all costs.
Henry Sexton is a white reporter for the weekly Concordia Beacon. Henry had been hunting the Double Eagles for 30 years.
Viola had contacted Henry to share with him some previously unknown facts about the murder of her brother in 1968 and his subsequent burial in the Bone Tree. Henry had completed two meetings with Viola when the District Attorney contacted him with the news that Viola, too, had been murdered.
Penn was a lawyer with experience as a district attorney in Houston, Texas where he tried hundreds of cases. Now he was facing the trial of his own father for the murder of Viola Turner. When Penn got together with his father, he found a reluctant witness. Dr. Tom Cage neither denied nor confirmed that he had killed Viola on purpose. Penn was frustrated with his father’s attitude as he knew a guilty verdict could mean life in prison or possibly even death by lethal injection.
Snake was a big believer in the Double Eagles rules: you are in it for life. What you learn about the Double Eagles stays with the Double Eagles. You break the rules and you die. Glenn Morehouse was on his last leg and he wanted to get some things off his chest. He calls Henry Sexton and tells him he is ready to spill some important information about the Double Eagles as it relates to Luther Davis and Jimmy Revels, back in the 60’s.
Snake hears that Glenn is talking and makes plan to enforce the rule about dying if you disclose Double Eagles confidentials.
Henry also suspected the Double Eagles of a gang rape of Viola during that time. He hoped Glenn would corroborate that suspicion.
After his conversation with Penn about Viola, the doctor pulled out a book from his shelf and retrieved a picture hiding in it. It was he and Viola and reminded him of the six-week period the two had together in a romantic affair, one of the best times of the good doctor’s life despite his marriage and family and despite Viola’s color.
Caitlin Masters is the publisher of the Natchez Exchange and the daughter of John Masters, the owner of 27 newspapers throughout the south. Caitlin and Penn plan to be married in a couple of months. Caitlin will become the step-mother of Annie Cage, Penn’s daughter from his first wife. Caitlin already has one Pulitzer prize and she is hoping for another one as she investigates the murders and rapes around Natchez in the 60’s.
Sheriff Billy Byrd of Adams County arrested Dr. Tom Cage in the morning. He was arraigned before Judge Noyes, the Circuit Court judge, and required to post $50,000 bail. By nightfall, he was out of jail and back home with Peggy.
Tom contacts Walt Garrity, a Texas Ranger and a Korean War medic comrade. Tom skips bail and meets Walt who has agreed to help him escape. Tom’s flight from bail was the most extreme measure he had ever taken in his life, an admission of guilt which would subject him to an All-Points Bulletin and the possibility of death from an arresting officer if he resisted being returned to jail.
Henry is preparing for his next big story on the Double Eagles. He was ready to accept an offer from Caitlin to join the Examiner in the story to get a wider distribution. As Henry is leaving his office, he is attacked by two teen age boys who stab him and beat him with a baseball bat. Luckily, his receptionist in the newspaper office hears the commotion and rescues Henry. He is transported to the hospital with stab wounds and bruises from the bat. The boys escape.
Caitlin is now pursuing the story of a lifetime, the murders of multiple blacks in the 60’s and the potential link of those murders and murderers to the assassination of JFK, RFK, and MLK.
Dr. Cage and Walt Garrity went looking for Sonny Thornfield. Walt found his truck and they put a tracker in it which led them to him later that night. Walt and Tom captured Sonny and tortured him to verify the true killer of Viola, whom they thought to be the Double Eagles led by Snake and supported by Sonny.
Two troopers of the Louisiana State Police showed up on the scene and Walt ended up killing one of them in a shootout. They left the dead body on the scene and took Sonny and the other trooper with them in Walt’s vehicle.
Brody Royal and Forrest Knox, along with their body guards, Captain Ozam for Forrest and Randall Reagan, met to discuss the botched kidnapping of Henry Sexton. Forrest lambasted Royal for screwing up the operation and for sending kids to do a man’s job. Claude Devereaux was also in the meeting and he swore that no one had ever talked in that tone to Body in the last 20 years. The meeting got heated especially when Forrest told Brody that Pooky Wilson, a black man, had been screwing his daughter, Katy.
While Caitlin is getting ready to go to the hospital where Henry Sexton is recovering from his kidnap attempt injuries, she slows down to take a pregnancy test—it’s positive. She is not sorry to be pregnant, but the timing is bad.
Penn and Caitlin head for the hospital to talk to Henry about information he had gained from Glenn Morehouse. They are not happy with each other because they are pursuing separate agendas, and each is protecting information. Penn is trying to save his father from the death penalty in a murder trial and Caitlin is trying to solve the murders of several civil rights victims from the 60’s.
John Kaiser has brought the FBI to town and they are searching the swamps at a location called the Jericho Hole for forensic evidence about the civil rights murders.
While Henry is in the hospital, Caitlin wants to follow-up on the stories he had been investigating, the deaths of Norris, Pooky, Jimmy, and Luther, among others. She realizes that her best source of information is from Brody Royal’s daughter, Katy.
Katy is married to Randall Reagan who works for Brody and mostly acts like a baby-sitter for Katy. Caitlin arrives at Katy’s house and begins to interview her. Katy confirms that she knows about several deaths that her father was responsible for, including her mother who had been drowned in the bathtub.
The interview is interrupted by Randall who unexpectedly shows up at his home. Caitlin pulls her pistol and threatens him, and she fires a warning shot but does not kill him. She runs as Randall informs her that she is a dead woman. Katy has passed out from a drug and alcohol overdose.
Sherry, Henry’s girlfriend, and Caitlin are in the hospital talking to Henry as he comes in and out of a drug-induced coma. Shots ring out coming from outside. Henry is hit, and Sherry is fatally wounded as well. Caitlin calls John Kaiser for help.
Penn is desperate to save his father’s life. He decides on a frontal approach that would make a deal with Brody Royal. He goes to Royal’s house with his bodyguard, Kirk. He negotiates with Royal to cancel the APB, get the case for killing the state trooper rescinded, and have the DA close the Viola Turner murder case against Tom Cage.
In return Pen promises Royal that he will give him all copies of the phone that recorded his daughter’s blaming him for the murder of all those boys in the 60’s. Royal’s name will not appear in any stories from the Examiner. Penn will give Royal the name of the witness who saw him burn down the Beacon with a flame thrower.
Caitlin does not agree with the terms. She will not give up on her story which includes publishing the name of Brody Royal, and it is to be published tomorrow. “You’re making a deal with the devil,” she said. “How can you be sure he will follow up with his end of the dead?”
Penn storms out of Caitlin’s office into the parking lot outside. Caitlin follows him out and they meet two men with pistols aimed at Penn. “Mr. Royal wants to talk to you.”
Penn and Caitlin were bound and gagged and transported to Royal’s home.
Royal had capitulated on the deal. He never had any intention of carrying it out.
Back at the hospital, Henry escapes with his mother’s help.
At Royal’s house, in the basement where Royal had built his own version of a torture chamber, Caitlin and Penn were presented to Brody Royal.
Royal unbinds the pair and initially tells Caitlin that the Examiner reporting computers had been hacked and he already knew the contents of the story that she intended to publish the next day. Caitlin was dumbfounded that someone had hacked her computers, probably an internal job, but who could it be?
In patting them down, Randall Regan has missed the straight razor that Penn has in his back pocket, a gift from Pithy Nolan for protection. Caitlin is able to get her hands on the razor and in a surprise move she has the blade up against Brody’s throat threatening to cut his carotid artery if Regan does not give up his weapon.
After a brief struggle when Caitlin cuts Brody above his carotid, Regan gets control again. Caitlin and Penn are led into the torture room. Brody still wants the name of the witness.
Penn is chained to a wall and Caitlin is tied to a pole as if she is to be burned at the stake. Upstairs, Henry Sexton has arrived and outside he finds a black man named Sleepy Johnson who had been watching the Brody house.
Henry and Sleepy overcome a guard outside and when they get inside they encounter Regan and Royal about to kill Penn and Caitlin. Royal has taken over the flame thrower from Regan. A fierce battle ensues. Sleepy is killed and Henry is shot but not immediately killed. Brody is holding the flame thrower on Caitlin with the intention of burning her to death within seconds.
Henry attacks Brody and triggers the flame thrower which ends up killing himself and Brody. Penn gets a gun from Randall and shoots the chain that is holding him. He gets Caitlin and carries Sleepy outside after determining that he was not dead after all.
Brody’s house is on fire; he and his body guards are dead, and Caitlin and Penn are outside watching the fire and tending to their torture wounds. The fire department and the FBI arrive on the scene but not before the house is a total loss.
Tom Cage, Penn, and Caitlin are still alive. Brody Royal and Randall Reagan are gone. Forrest Knox and Snake are still alive, and the Double Eagles are still going strong challenging John Kaiser and the FBI. The south progresses towards racial tolerance but it has a long way to go and as it turns out the progress over time comes in cycles and waves, sometimes moving forward, sometimes not.
Rating
Four stars out of four. Entertaining, educational. Full of adventure and intrigue. Sometimes hard to believe as the conspiracy of JFK’s assassination is revealed. Excellent descriptions of the integration of America during the 1960’s and the racist bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan and National Supremacists. A must read.
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