She rolled with the creek, which wound through the woods toward the paper mill and crashed into the Mississippi River on a maelstrom. She never meant to cause trouble. She was a quiet girl, brilliant and full of life. When she laughed, others laughed with her. When she cried, she hid her tears. She was blessed with many gifts and took none for granted. At seventeen, she had already brought honor to the town. No one would have predicted this end."

Kate Townsend was found dead after her body floated downstream and was caught in the elbow of a fallen tree. She had been a beautiful high school senior who was looking forward to going to Harvard. Her future had always seemed infinite, especially during the years she attended the prestigious, mostly white St. Stephen's Prep. She was raped, sodomized and murdered near her Natchez home just a few weeks before graduation.

Her death "would whip the town into another kind of maelstrom, one that would make the river seem placid by comparison." The explosion that erupts as a result of her death exposes Natchez's questionable and/or illegal alliances, political shenanigans, drug trafficking, overt or covert violence, and the realization that sexual predators are living among the townspeople. Parents in Natchez had no idea what their teenagers experimented with and consummated. Layers of the city's dirty secrets are peeled back to reveal a seamy side of Natchez that folks had been denying for years.

Into this vortex of grief, horror, drug deals, deception and infidelity overseen by redneck cops and a dishonest district attorney strides Penn Cage, the hero of Greg Iles's THE QUIET GAME. The former attorney turned successful novelist is the conscience of the most recent Iles novel, TURNING ANGEL. Penn is a very popular guy, respected for his honesty, loyalty and reputation as a fine lawyer. He grew up in Natchez, where his parents still live; after 15 years as a Texas prosecutor and the death of his wife, he moved back there with his daughter Annie.

The focus of the investigation into Kate's murder centers on Dr. Drew Elliott, a beloved physician and icon to the town's residents, both white and black. He and Penn, who are considered town heroes, have known each other since childhood. Their affinity for one another has endured since Drew saved Penn's life when they were kids. They are both alumni of St. Stephen's Prep and serve together on the school board.

At an evening meeting, the board is told of Kate's death. They are stunned, outraged, confused and frightened. The meeting is adjourned and all but Drew get up to leave. "As [Penn Cage] reaches for the office doorknob," [he freezes] … his friend is still sitting at the table "with tears pouring down his face." Penn is perplexed but remains behind in an effort to comfort Drew and try to calm him down. He never expected that this act of compassion for a friend would change all of their lives and bore a hole right through the facades that held Natchez together.

Drew asks Penn to stay behind with him and demands that he take a few dollars to ensure that [their] "discourse will be shielded by attorney-client privilege." With great reluctance Penn does as he's asked. The story Drew has to tell may not be new but is certainly shocking.

Despite their age difference he and Kate were lovers and had planned to run away after her graduation. "I knew Kate a lot better than anyone knows. I was in love with her." Penn says, "…Tell me she was eighteen, Drew." She would've been in two weeks. Penn whispers, "That's statutory rape in Mississippi…especially with [a more than 20-year] age difference between you."

Penn ruminates: "A man walks the straight and narrow all his life; he follows the rules, stays within the lines; then one day he makes a misstep. He crosses a line and sets in motion a chain of events that will take from him everything he has and damn him forever in the eyes of those he loves…" and all who held him in esteem. "Dr. Drew Elliott is such a man. How did Drew Elliott transform himself from hero into monster? He reached out for love, and in the reaching pulled a whole town down on top of him." In this small provincial enclave, who is going to understand that Drew and Kate really had been soul mates? Who among them will acknowledge that the two had fallen deeply in love? Who won't see him as a sexual predator not even worthy of a fair hearing? To them he is evil incarnate --- someone they trusted who betrayed them with a young girl, now dead.

As the story lunges ahead with tremendous speed toward the surprising climax, readers get a broad view of the other players in this seething mystery: Cyrus White, a drug dealer [and ironically Kate's supplier] whose hobby is finding new ways to torture people; Marko Bakic, a Croatian exchange student at the prep school who has seen horrors in his home country most military men could not endure (he came to the U.S. expecting to become a drug lord); Mia Burke, a senior at St. Stephen's and a more than dependable babysitter for Annie, Penn's daughter --- she has a crush on him and helps him gather information about the case; Penn's love interest, Caitlin, the publisher of the local newspaper and an investigative reporter whose stories keep her on the road; and Quentin Avery, the civil rights lawyer who agrees to represent Drew at trial if and when it comes to that.

Greg Iles is a writer of enormous talent with a canny knack not only for creating believable characters, but for moving them through tightly woven plots that could take place in any town, USA. Readers are immediately drawn into the tension aroused by the mystery of Kate's murder. The characters are three-dimensional and fit their roles. "Some stories must wait to be told. Any writer worth his salt knows this. Sometimes you wait for events to percolate in your subconscious until a deeper truth emerges; other times you're simply waiting for the principals to die. Sometimes it is both. This story is like that." Any reader with a taste for a literary challenge in this genre is going to be more than satisfied. TURNING ANGEL is a definite keeper.