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A review by swaggle
Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
3.5
Greg Iles novel Natchez Burning is the first in a trilogy, but also follows the stories of protagonists of earlier books which I will admit I haven't read before this book. However I think Iles does a good job of catching us up to speed with these characters and what motivates them, as complicated as their motivations sometimes are.
I think there are several things which make Iles' characters in this book compelling: he finds a good balance between showing a character's flaws or lapses of judgment with obvious sympathy for their cause (at least in the case of the protagonists). The antagonists' causes are less sympathetic for obvious reasons, but they are still complicated nonetheless, and I think this is owing to Iles' own personal grief and relationship with mortality, which is a major theme running through this book. Another thing which makes the characters compelling is that he is inspired by real people, the obvious example being Stanley Nelson, an investigator of civil rights cold-cases and Klan murders in Louisiana reporting for the Concordia Sentinel, this investigative journalism making Nelson a contender for a Pulitzer in 2011. The obvious connection being Henry Sexton (even the name sounds somewhat similar).
The book features only a few black characters although the historical background and setting emphasizes their stories, black characters are mostly in the background rather than the foreground of this novel. Greg Iles suggests it is because he "had nothing to teach black readers" about racism. I still found these characters compelling and equally complicated, but you can decide for yourself if these characters are believable or compelling, or about where they fall in the cast.
I think there are several things which make Iles' characters in this book compelling: he finds a good balance between showing a character's flaws or lapses of judgment with obvious sympathy for their cause (at least in the case of the protagonists). The antagonists' causes are less sympathetic for obvious reasons, but they are still complicated nonetheless, and I think this is owing to Iles' own personal grief and relationship with mortality, which is a major theme running through this book. Another thing which makes the characters compelling is that he is inspired by real people, the obvious example being Stanley Nelson, an investigator of civil rights cold-cases and Klan murders in Louisiana reporting for the Concordia Sentinel, this investigative journalism making Nelson a contender for a Pulitzer in 2011. The obvious connection being Henry Sexton (even the name sounds somewhat similar).
The book features only a few black characters although the historical background and setting emphasizes their stories, black characters are mostly in the background rather than the foreground of this novel. Greg Iles suggests it is because he "had nothing to teach black readers" about racism. I still found these characters compelling and equally complicated, but you can decide for yourself if these characters are believable or compelling, or about where they fall in the cast.