by Greg Iles
First published 2024
Penn Cage has spent fifteen years in isolation, carrying a deadly secret after losing nearly everyone he loved. His solitude ends when violence erupts at a Mississippi rap festival, nearly killing his daughter Annie in a mass shooting. Antebellum plantation homes burn across Natchez and Bienville as a Black radical group claims responsibility for the attacks. The chaos provides fuel for Robert E. Lee White, a decorated Special Forces veteran turned presidential candidate. White builds his third-party campaign on social media fame and billionaire backing, threatening to upend the 2024 election. As racial tensions explode and the nation splits between competing visions of America, Penn teams with his civil rights lawyer daughter and a former Black Panther recently released from Parchman Prison. Together they race to expose White's true agenda before his candidacy tears the country apart. The investigation forces Penn to risk everything as America lurches toward another civil war.
Genres: american-fiction, african-american, contemporary, action, 21st-century, political-thriller
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Bienville, Mississippi, Natchez, Parchman Prison
Period: 2024
966 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow
Content warnings: racism, violence