The first thing I read when I started working here was a copy of Natchez Burning by Greg Iles. I think I had the same initial reaction as most bibliophiles would: “wait, we get free books?!” After that excitement wore off, I realized that I was already a hundred pages into the book and felt completely hooked. It’s the first new installment in the Penn Cage series in five years, and over the next two years we will be treated with two more continuations from author Greg Iles.
No, not THAT Penn Cage.
Penn Cage, the novel’s focal character, is the mayor of Natchez (and boy do mayors seem to have a lot of free time these days) who learns that his moral compass may by trained to follow the wrong person. Imagine what Nicholas Cage’s character must have been thinking during the movie Face/Off: the struggle between trying to save his family and trying to follow that grey mist of a concept some people call ethics. How far can you bend before you break your own rules? What happens when the person who gave you those rules has bent them pretty far himself?
But, (thankfully) this book cannot simply be summed up in one sloppy Nicholas Cage movie metaphor— It will take quite a few. Con Air for example, now that is a Cage we can all hope to fulfill this role. He fights for those who cannot defend themselves. He gets in bed with a ruthless killer because it is the only way to save someone. Oh, and let’s not forget that silky, smooth, southern drawl that, I must admit, I imagined while reading a few lines in the book. But no, our Penn Cage is not so much a brawler as he is a schemer. How about National Treasure Cage then? He is definitely well-educated— a thinking man’s hero who is more able to use his trivia knowledge and clever friends to save the day before he would win a fist fight on top of a fire truck. He quickly uses what little information he has to decide on a plan of attack, trying to always hit where no one would think to look. Always trying his hardest to follow the law, but unable to do so. No, it’s close, but P. Cage doesn’t seem so bookish.
Gone in Sixty Seconds has the action, the tempo, and the reassurance of a man in control in spite of living his worst nightmare. Only at the very edge do we see the nerves start to fray and the mind lose the sharpness that got him into that seat as mayor or legendary car thief. But of course the bleak, lawless history of Memphis Raines (are you still with me after all these movie references?) disqualifies him.
Who then? It’s got to be The Rock where the two Cages finally overlap. The world is turned upside down for our heroes and everyone else is a lot slower to catch on. Stanley Goodspeed is extremely good at what he does and, despite dealing with some very dangerous elements (chemical weapons for N. Cage and criminal law for P. Cage), he is relatively protected from danger. Soon, however, you immediately feel the loss of confidence as both characters are thrown out of their element and into the deep end of the pool. Both Cages quickly realize their situations must be handled in a vacuum. Survival first, reelection is still a few years away—they can play the old solving-a-hate-crime card later to win back votes. Stanley, like Penn, finally realizes the only way to survive is to get down into the mud with the enemy and hope he still has a shred of morality left after they hose off the blood and the dirt.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even more than writing an entire post about Nicholas Cage movie characters. If that doesn’t sell you on it then I don’t know what would.
Comments are closed.