Product Description

Rape and murder aren’t new to the Deep South, but when the body of a popular high school girl is found dumped in the local river, the whole town of Natchez, Mississippi is shocked.

Penn Cage no longer practises law, but when his best friend Drew is accused of the murder and asks for help, Penn must face the hardest questions of his life: Can he defend Drew against the town, the police and overwhelming evidence? Or could it be true that his friend is a brutal killer who has deceived Penn and everyone else? (20051031)

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32073 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
'Everything goes crazy and we the readers can only sit back and enjoy the mayhem. Brilliant!' (Independent on Sunday 20060506)

'A pleasure to read' (Time Out 20060421)

'The job of great fiction is to entertain, elucidate and educate while keeping readers nailed to their chairs; this does all of that brilliantly.' (Publishers Weekly )

'One of America's top new crime writers.' (Observer on Greg Iles )

'Alarming, believable, and utterly consuming … resonates long after the final page is turned.' (Dan Brown on DARK MATTER )

'Iles's way of telling the story lifts him clear of the pack ... into a different league.' (Observer on BLOOD MEMORY )

'Edge-of-the-seat thrills all the way.' (Irish Independent on BLOOD MEMORY )

'What does a book's plot need to entice you? Sex, drugs, murder? How about sleazy politicians, bigotry, gunfights...and more sex?...If you haven't yet discovered Iles, TURNING ANGEL will have you wondering where he's been all your life' (USA Today )

'Explosive...powerful' (Chicago Sun-Times )

'Lurid...gripping, but there is more to TURNING ANGEL than sex and scandal. Iles offers an insider's heartfelt picture of a Southern town...and populates it with characters who are all too real' (Washington Post )

'An engrossing, fast paced legal thriller...a terrific writer'

 

(Irish Independent )

'Greg Iles writes gripping legal thrillers soaked in atmosphere'

 

(Mirror )

About the Author
Greg Iles is the internationally bestselling author of nine earlier highly acclaimed thrillers, including DARK MATTER and BLOOD MEMORY. He lives with his family in Natchez Mississippi, USA. (20051031)

---

Customer Reviews

PURE ILES - POWERFUL AND UNPUTDOWNABLE
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.

- Gail Cooke

Turning Angel = Turning Heads
This was my first installment of Greg Iles, were have i been? Turning Angel was more than a pleasant suprise for me, this is a page turner if ever there was one. Iles writes with precision and leaves you hungry for more. Easily read in one sitting, altough i only gave it 4 stars because the plot wasnt the best but it was a brilliant read and would highly recommend it, am going to purchase the rest of his books!

One of my best reads of 2006
A wonderful murder mystery set today in an interesting town in America's south. Stylish writing, the raising of a couple of important social issues and other great plot elements combine to make this a truly great read. I have read Iles before and the levels of intrigue and characterisation here are as high as in his other novels.

Perhaps the ending was a little too drawn-out, but that's much better than a scenario when a book ends too suddenly and/or conveniently.

I only rated two other books as highly as this one this year, so "Turning Angel" sits in some quite good company.