Synopses & Reviews
Street-smart and straightforward police chief Cuddy Mangum and his refined homicide detective Justin Savile V are determined to keep their town's cultural, political and racial divisions stable...even peaceful. But when a young black activist is murdered while in the process of fighting for his brother's freedom from death row, the lines keeping Hillston, North Carolina, in balance start to crumble.
Thrust into a dirty political campaign and torn between his morals and his love for the wealthy and beautiful wife of an up-and-coming politician, Cuddy must uncover the secrets that lie in his own backyard.
From high-powered and elegant country club ballrooms to dark and dangerous bar room corners, Maloneweaves a mystery of plow and place where the difference between good and evil and right and wrong sometimes become blurred.
Review
"A complex and satisfying plot, a rich panorama....Magnificent reminders that beliefs need not be separated from character, that beliefs are character....[Malone] should be congratulated." New York Times Book Review
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"Transcends the mystery genre to conjure up a vivid sense of time, of place, of history and of hope." Chicago Sun-Times
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"One of the most entertaining portraits of the new South....[A]nother winning chronicle....His hero [is] as engaging a tour guide through this peripatetic narrative as anyone could wish." Publishers Weekly
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"Marvelously engaging...splendid...hilarious....Five hundred pages of Cuddy Mangum merely whets the appetite for more." Kirkus Reviews
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"Malone is an eloquent, witty writer who combines page-turning suspense with the subtlety and deeply felt emotion of the Southern literary tradition at its finest. As entertaining as Presumed Innocent, as resonant as To Kill a Mockingbird." Booklist