Here’s a very short excerpt from Page 1, Chapter 1 of Greg Iles’ Turning Angel (2005, 595 pages in softcover format): “A man walks the straight and narrow all his life; 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.” That, in two sentences, is the plot of this Penn Cage thriller.
There are several key characters in this story, but the protagonist is Penn Cage, a native of Natchez, Mississippi, a former prosecutor for the District Attorney of Houston, Texas, and now a professional writer with a few best-selling novels. In a previous book, he returned to his home town and got embroiled in a court case that fired old animosities between the races. And now he’s faced with the task of helping his lifelong friend Dr. Drew Elliot. Drew is in his early 40s, married, and has a young son Timmy who never makes an appearance in the story. We just know that he exists, and Kate Townsend is his part-time baby-sitter.
Kate is absolutely beautiful, two weeks shy of 18 years of age, class valedictorian at her high school, headed for Harvard in the fall, state champion in two sports (swimming and tennis), and Dr. Drew Elliot’s secret lover. Also, she’s dead. And she was pregnant. Her body is found, strangled before she floated down a creek toward the Mississippi River.
When Drew sits down for a heart-to-heart with his best friend, he tells Penn that he wasn’t just having an affair with Kate. He was in love with her and planned to divorce his wife so that he could marry Kate, 23 years his junior. When Drew finishes talking, Penn begins explaining the list of laws that Drew has broken for which he could serve 40 years in prison. Moreover, if he’s convicted of her murder, he could face the death penalty under Mississippi’s system.
Penn Cage, a widower, also has a child, a daughter, Annie, a couple of years younger than Timmy. Annie also has a babysitter, Mia, another beautiful high-school senior, headed for Brown (one of the eight Ivy League colleges), and more worldly wise than can be imagined. Although Mia does not use drugs, she’s knowledgeable about the drug scene, and it seems that too many students as well as adult citizens of Natchez are drug addicts, notably the wife of Dr. Drew Elliot.
Although Penn has obtained an excellent lawyer for Drew, he acts as the lawyer’s investigator. His initial suspicion as to the Kate’s killer is one of the local drug suppliers. Naturally, his best source for information is his daughter’s baby-sitter, Mia. Mia is very willing to help, perhaps because she has a crush on Penn, just as Kate was attracted to Drew.
Can Penn Cage resist crossing the line? At times, this seems even more important than the question as to the guilt or innocence of Drew.
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Puede contactar a Jim Glynn en j_glynn@att.net.