Only recently discovered thanks to the recommendation of a close friend, Mississippi author Greg Iles has turned out to be a consistent delight with the two novels that I have read so far. I should have picked up on him earlier, since all ten of his novels have made the New York Times best seller list beginning with his 1992 inaugural novel, "Spandau Phoenix." This 1999 novel is one of his earlier ones and the first to feature Penn Cage, a Houston prosecuting attorney and wannabe author who will turn detective in this outing.

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960 where his father was the head of the US Embassy Medical Clinic at the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983, he performed as a guitar player with his own rock band, "Frankly Scarlett," until he came to the realization that a rock band lifestyle doesn't mix well with family life. Now settled into a very successful literary career, Iles still steps out as the lead guitar with another band, "The Rock Bottom Remainders." He currently resides with his family in Natchez, Mississippi, the site for this particular mystery.

"The Quiet Game" is a well constructed story with Penn Cage, the protagonist, at the center of such a complex mix of villains that he doesn't even know which way the bullets are flying. Literally, in one instance. Then top that off with an even more dangerous mix of dames and femme fatales, and it is a wonder that he makes it half way through the story, much less to the end. With all of this is going on, he also has to balance the needs of his parents and his young daughter against what turns out to be deadly cases of long buried secrets with their owners doing everything in their power to make sure that those secrets remain buried. Good thing he is back in his home town of Natchez where his old friends either envy him, hate him, or want to betray him. Fortunately, he does have a few friends and associates who will be there for him when it counts.

Penn Cage is vacationing at Disney World with his daughter, Annie, in an apparently futile effort to erase the horror of recently having lost his wife, Sarah, who was murdered by one of the vicious Hanratty brothers. His daughter shocks him when she claims that she saw her mother waiting in another line at the theme park. Realizing that Disney World isn't working out for them, Penn decides to leave Florida and visit his parents back in Natchez where Annie has many warm memories of happier times spent with her grandparents. 

Penn and Annie begin their flight to the Baton Rouge airport, where they will drive up to the Cage family home in Natchez, Mississippi. Another reason that he wants to go home besides family therapy is because his mother has sounded concerned lately on the telephone about something which she will not disclose to her son.

But the main reason, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, is that Houston has become a hotbed of press activity over the impending execution of Arthur Lee Hanratty, a convicted serial killer. Penn had helped to convict Hanratty eight years earlier while serving as the Texas States Attorney. Hanratty is a white supremacist who had been given immunity by FBI member John Portman after testifying against his confederates. He then moved out to California where he later killed a black man in a traffic dispute. Hanratty fled back to Texas where he went on another killing spree and massacred an entire black family. 

Portman wanted to try Hanratty in California, but Penn Cage wanted to try him in Houston, where he could get the death penalty. Cage won the legal tussle, and since then there has been bad blood between him and Portman, who is now the Director of the FBI. It was not to be a happy victory for Penn Cage, for one of the two remaining Hanratty brothers, all of them rotten to the core, invaded his home hoping to kill him. He ended up killing Sarah before Penn shot him to death, so now the third Hanratty brother has also sworn to take his revenge against him. 

With his family tragedy in mind, it is easy to understand why Houston no longer has any appeal for him even though Penn had promised the members of the victim's family that he will attend the execution. He now has nothing on his plate but to go home to Natchez to sort everything out. While resting in his first class seat with Annie asleep next to him, he sees a young, well-dressed woman who looks like a lawyer reading one of his books. He tries to look innocuous, but she looks over, recognizes him from his picture on the dust jacket, and begins to chat him up across the aisle. 1999, The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.