Cemetery Road

Marshall McEwan, the star of this compulsively readable thriller from bestseller Iles (Mississippi Blood), returns to his hometown of Bienville, Miss., for two good reasons: his father’s getting old and rickety, and the woman he loves still lives there. McEwan, who spent years as a top-flight investigative journalist in Washington, D.C., takes the helm of his family’s failing 150-year-old newspaper, The Watchman, and is soon immersed in the biggest news in town: the impending arrival of a Chinese-financed paper mill that will supposedly get Bienville back on its feet. Meanwhile, rumors of corruption, back-dealing, and murder swirl around the project and won’t go away. Lurking in the background is the Poker Club, a cabal of businessmen who have run the town from behind the scenes since the Civil War. And the slinky Jet Matheson, the love of McEwan’s youth, keeps putting off divorcing her husband, Poker Club heir-in-waiting Paul Matheson, though she’s perfectly willing to see McEwan on the side. Iles once again delivers a sweeping tale of family dysfunction, sexually charged secrets, and the power of wealth, with an overlay of violence and Southern sensibility. Despite the novel’s length, it all goes by in a flash. Author tour. Agents: Dan Conaway and Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Mar.)