Detective Alex Cross recounts the story of his great-uncle Abraham, who, with the help of his beautiful daughter, introduces Washington, D.C., attorney Ben Corbett to the dark side of their small Southern town in the early 1900s, where Ben has been sent t

A Southern town is shocked when a 10-year-old black girl is raped by two white men--until the girl's father takes the law into his own hands.

When the body of Kate Townsend turns up near the Mississippi River, attorney Penn Cage tangles with the dark side of his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate the secret world of an elite nearby high school.

"For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends,...