skbreese's Full Review: Greg Iles - True Evil: Library Edition
In his creepy suspense thriller True Evil, Author Greg Iles grabs his reader's attention right off the bat with the eye catching tag line, true evil has a face you know and a voice you trust. After a rather slow start, the novel picks up pace quickly, as the reader is thrust into a twisted web of sex, lies, and murder, and the intriguing story of a determined young FBI agent, who carries the scars of a troubled past.
Former hostage negotiator and FBI agent Alexandra (Alex) Morse, has had a rough year, with her father killed in a robbery, her mother battling ovarian cancer, and her own brush with death, in a botched hostage negotiation that left her with a scarred face, and the loss of a fellow agent. As if that were not enough, she finds herself in the emergency room in Jackson, Mississippi, where her sister, Grace, is fighting for her life. Just before passing away, Grace mutters an accusation against her husband, Bill Fennell, that sends Alex into an undercover investigation that reveals a diabolical conspiracy between a sleazy divorce lawyer and a shrewed, but deranged physician, who have discovered a foolproof method to commit convenient murders for their wealthy clientele who wish to avoid a costly divorce, by injecting the victims with a deadly retrovirus. Alex must undertake the monumental task of convincing unsuspecting Dr. Chris Shepherd, that he is the next victim, in order to unravel the conspiracy.
Once again, Iles takes advantage of the seductive atmosphere of his native Natchez, Mississippi, with it's gnarled, moss covered oaks, and stately Greek Revival mansions, set along the banks of the Mississippi River, to create yet another of his neo-southern Gothic thrillers. However, unlike many of Iles' previous novels, the personalities of many of the main characters in this novel are exaggerated beyond credibility.
With his short choppy sentences, and snappy dialog, Iles manages to create an underlying tension throughout the novel that propels it to a stark conclusion, as demonstrate in the following excerpt:
"He (Chris) walked past her (his wife Thora) toward the bleachers. He thought she might call after him, but she didn't. As he walked, he tried to get a handle on his emotions. After going back to his office, he had done as Morse suggested and checked his online billing records for Thora's cell phone. He found several numbers he didn't recognize. Stranger still, there had been no call at 12:28 pm (when he had last spoken to her). There wasn't even a call in the thirty-minute window surrounding 12:28. Either Agent Morse was mistaken, or Thora had a cell phone he knew nothing about."
Iles includes a good bit of detail in this book about research into retroviruses, that some may find fascinating. Others may find it quite tedious, especially considering that the book is already quite lengthy at 637 pages.
Overall, in my opinion, True Evil is not one of Iles' best novels. While it did manage to hold my attention throughout, I found the story to be a bit too slow developing and the conspiracy at bit far-fetched. The ending was also quite predictable. Although well-written, this novel seemed to lack to pulse-pounding suspense and well drawn characters in some of his previous works. Although Iles is still on my A-list of suspense thriller writers, I consider this a mediocre effort for a writer of his talent.
True evil has a face you know and a voice you trust...A Southern doctor is pulled into a terrifying ring of murderous secrets in this powerhouse thril...More at HotBookSale
Dr. Chris Shepard, a busy young doctor in Natchez, Mississippi, has never seen his new patient Alex Morse before. But the attractive young woman with ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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