The Quiet Game

The Quiet Game
Greg Iles

The first thriller in the New York Times No.1 bestselling series featuring Penn Cage: a prosecutor in a corrupt system, a husband whose wife has died, and a father who must protect his daughter. ‘An engrossing, page-turning ride’ (Jeffery Deaver).Don’t say a word…Natchez, Mississippi. A city of old money and older sins. A place where a thirty-year-old crime lies buried, and everyone plays the quiet game. But on man cannot stay silent.Returning to his home town, former prosecuting attorney Penn Cage is stunned to discover that his father is being blackmailed over a decades-old murder.Negotiating the town’s undercurrents of greed, corruption, and racial tension, Penn uncovers a powerful secret that reaches to the highest levels of government.And as the town closes ranks, Penn realises that his crusade for justice has taken a dangerous turn- one which could cost him his life…

GREG ILES

The Quiet Game

Copyright

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Copyright © Greg Iles 1999

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Cover photographs © Hayden Verry / Arcangel Images (cemetery), Henry Steadman (figure)

Greg Iles asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007545704

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007545728

Version: 2017-10-01

For

Madeline and Mark

Who will always be my best work.

And

Anna Flowers

Who taught me about class in every sense.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked:

For whatsoever a man soweth,

that shall he also reap.

—GALATIANS 6:7

Table of Contents

Cover (#ud73f6cb5-3d64-5d02-afe4-87ff8ba49174)

Title Page (#u11d3a89b-d834-509b-a5cb-e695f3e4f213)

Copyright (#u3811e889-1b23-5d48-82f1-da1e23599aed)

Dedication (#u1541fe4f-16e7-5f61-b333-c8cdf254c594)

Epigraph (#u19dcf5fc-9fd4-58c7-a52d-240116b6df28)

Chapter One (#ue910b23e-e34c-5547-9cec-191543ddf363)

Chapter Two (#u83e6abc7-4707-5590-994d-33ecedf947ce)

Chapter Three (#u48268ed5-3862-5e29-a47f-a8edf7502a5e)

Chapter Four (#u8d731811-17b0-5c97-ae77-c151fb95b9ce)

Chapter Five (#ue3f20da2-9ffc-5c85-9625-bd4b0756b797)

Chapter Six (#u1db3e8a4-7d40-5328-8c01-855c228493a5)

Chapter Seven (#u22828749-a182-58c0-8593-3460b7551559)

Chapter Eight (#u10d6ada9-0c16-5045-b431-d58a381478a9)

Chapter Nine (#ub495c39e-828e-5c39-94bc-406cd63e103c)

Chapter Ten (#ub2084aa2-3b90-51a4-acb3-43fbe2dae382)

Chapter Eleven (#u75594488-c5e7-5199-85cc-7d2780079f56)

Chapter Twelve (#udeb2caaa-0e11-588b-9427-d2085b11749c)

Chapter Thirteen (#u51ebbdc4-f1b4-56f2-b55a-08b29812a6d4)