Review of The Devil's Punchbowl

The Devil's Punchbowl ended up surprising me.  When I started this book, I found it to be very long winded and slow to get into.  Very easy to put down and do something else.  But I persevered.  So glad I did.  Once the action starts you are thrown into a whirlpool of a harsh, graphic and disturbing world.  The underbelly of gambling in its worse state.  This obviously is a continuing series where characters from a previous novel are reintroduced.  That doesn't really matter for the author uses a brillant technique of humanizing his characters and makes you feel that you know them from the first time they hit the page.

Set in Natchez, Mississippi, the book reflects on the distance between classes and races even in this day and age.  The use of gambling heightens the differences and draws a harrowing picture.  Penn Cage, the main character and flawed hero, and his group of friends set out to clean a town riddled with prostitution and gambling.  This debauchery was invited in to save a town drowning in economic crisis, racism and strong class divisions.  Seemingly good for the town were the taxes and tourist income but lying beneath was a world not many could see or would ever want to imagine; dogfighting, sexual degradation and murder. 

Greg Iles spares no feelings with the graphic storytelling.  A weak stomach you cannot have with this novel.

I give this book a three star rating out of five.  Give him a chance to reel you in and then hang on for dear life.