The Devil's Punchbowl

This is more than a thriller. This book, even though it is more lengthy than I usually read, the name Iles always draws me back. Characters are unusual but believable and the plot is never predictable. A great read!

Greg Iles is a very uneven author, delivering gripping thrillers like  The Quiet Game  and  Black Cross , only to follow them with very forgettable books, such as  24 Hours . In this latest offering, he takes his readers back to Natchez, Mississippi, and the life of Penn Cage, hero of two of the best of those previous books (The Quiet Game and Turning Angel). Cage, now the mayor of Natchez, has found it hard to realize his dream of reviving his hometown. He can't seem to fix the school system, and he's had to invite riverboat casino companies like Golden Parachute to town in order to keep the city's economy afloat.Then one day a childhood friend and a bit of a lost soul, Tim Jessup, asks to meet privately with Cage. Tim, who's now working on one of the riverboat casinos, has uncovered a host of illegal and violent activities, and wants to get enough information to Penn to stop them. His efforts to do so leave Penn caught in another race to solve a series of puzzles in order to save his own life and those of his family and closest friends.There's not a lot of subtlety in this book, compared to the previous books featuring Penn Cage. But there's oodles of atmosphere -- prior to reading Iles's books, I had never dreamed of visiting Mississippi, but now I want to go! -- and the pace is relentless. I miss the slower pace of some of the earlier novels, which allows for more exploration of character and setting -- at both of which Iles is excellent -- and the 'race against the clock' element in the plot didn't add anything. Iles can generate a heck of a lot of suspenseful situations for his characters without such artificial devices. Still, the contrast between Penn's city -- celebrating the balloon festival, with happy families eating barbecue feasts in the park, even as a sleepless Penn is struggling to figure out how to stop the evildoers -- is compelling.From early on, it's clear who the chief villains are, and who the white hats are -- Penn assembles a blue-chip team of allies, including a contractor from Blackwater and a former Texas Ranger. The only real mystery is how Penn will extricate himself and those he loves from this fresh set of perils, and at what cost. That makes for a lively read, but not one that keeps you on the lookout for the next giant twist. Moreover, there is a lot of explicit violence in this book, more so than in many thrillers I've read (except possibly Val McDermid's serial killer books). In many cases it's there to keep the plot momentum going, but while it's in character for the 'bad guys' (whom Jessup and his friends describe as demons in human form), the violence level was over the top for me. (And I enjoy McDermid's books...) I look forward to reading the next Greg Iles, but hopefully it will be one where the violence and real character-driven suspense are more in balance.Recommended with the caveats above, but anyone who hasn't read the two previous novels featuring Penn Cage may find themselves at a bit of a loss. The plot itself is self-contained, but Iles wastes little time filling readers in on their history. There are references to the events in The Quiet Game, for instance, that simply won't make sense. I suggest starting with those two (better) books, and moving on to this one only if you found yourself fascinated by both Natchez and the rest of Penn Cage's world.I've rated this 3.5 stars, marked down because of the reliance on violence and the rapid pace for suspense, instead of on plot twists.

This one should be a 4 to 4 1/2 star rating. My biggest complaint was the narrator who overdid all the voices. I prefer a reader who does proper inflections and maybe raises a woman's or child's voice to a slightly higher pitch but this narrator was so carried away with his acting ability that I had. trouble understanding him at times. Also, near the end of the novel he twice pronounced saloon as salon. I use the audio along with virtually every book I read now because I don't like audio only. I read up to around 1000 words per minute but I'm retired, live alone and like having both the written and audio so when I have laundry or need to prepare a meal or other chores I don't have to quit the book. This has become more a review of Whispersync than the book!I've read all the Penn Cage books I think. At least 6 or 7. I find the characters interesting and the stories in a class with the best of psychological thrillers. They always surprise me when I notice the number of pages and yet none of them seem too long, obviously because there's no boredom that I can find. In addition, his southern setting and realistic historical background is really refreshing because he does not try to rewrite history to keep it politically correct. That's dangerous because most of us need to remember what the south as well as the whole world used to be like and today some of that shows that old racial attitudes are more than bubbling to the surface. I have lived in Texas all my life and I can see similarities here. My mother was born and raised in Louisiana. My aunt and cousins moved back to Louisiana after also moving to Texas and I recall as a teen visiting back in the '60s. Not friendly until they got to know me gUys my cousin was hanging with) but after getting to know me - what a group of great friends. I became like family and really understood southern hospitality.So just from my personal viewpoint, Greg Iles is more than a superficial thriller author but closer to James Burke. His writing transcends any genre, like Burke although he's not quite up to Burke. Close but not that good. Burke is, at times, downright poetic! The Devil's Punchbowl is still highly recommended.

This is the third book in Iles’ “Natchez” series. The first, The Quiet Game, was superb – a well written thriller with an excellent plot and a satisfying legal edge to it. The second, The Turning Angel, was almost as good. This third book in the series has some, but not all, of the ingredients that made The Quiet Game so good. Missing was the legal element, and added was violence, degradation and evil that was just a bit too much for me. The plot explores the darkest side of human nature – darker than I have ever contemplated – and it was very disturbing in places.Having said that, the book was absorbing, well researched and complex. However, I can no longer compare it to John Grisham, whose works are always uplifting and leave the reader feeling satisfied. The Devil’s Punchbowl has left me feeling defiled. A pity. I will try other Iles books after a bit of a break in the hope that he lightens up a bit.

Yet another brilliant book by Greg Iles, the only author I've read for the last two weeks as I have worked my way relentlessly through the six-book Penn Cage series to the detriment of all the chores I need to do round home! As an animal lover it doesn't make for easy reading at times as the thought of dog-fighting (or any other blood sport) is just horrendous to me, but there is no point in pretending such things do not go on and that the people involved are cruel and ruthless in the extreme. In this book, that cruelty and ruthlessness extends beyond their animal victims to humans too. Greg Iles is a masterful story-teller, bringing the characters, the setting of Natchez and its environs and the story itself to life in your head and leaving you hungry for more of the same from this compulsive author.

I made the mistake of reading this after Natchez Burning, which is very assured and compelling. The Devil's Punchbowl feels too much like a work in progress; it's clumsily constructed and it could have done with judicious pruning. Not only that, it peaks too soon, so that the last third of the book becomes an extended - and rambling - anticlimax.The violence here strikes me as gratuitous in the extreme; at least the horrors of Natchez Burning could be justified in terms of the novel's historical context. There are passages of dubious morality as well. These are handled much more thoughtfully in Natchez Burning, which is a far more complex and satisfying read.

Greg Iles is a rare breed of author who can maintain the suspense throughout this book. His Characters maybe fictitious but he brings them to life within actual places. I found it difficult to this book down including the others I have read. If I have a criticism it is the endings are a bit flat and a bit of an anti climax. If you like thrillers read this book.

This is the third Penn Cage, read one after the other and about to start the fourth. Not only the best kind of thrillers, also historically very interesting about the southern states of the US. If you like this genre, and you like to read a lot, theses are a real find.