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    Cemetery Road: A Novel
    Cemetery Road: A Novel
    Cemetery Road: A Novel
    Audiobook23 hours

    Cemetery Road: A Novel

    Written by Greg Iles

    Narrated by Scott Brick

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy returns with an electrifying tale of friendship, betrayal, and shattering secrets that threaten to destroy a small Mississippi town.

    When Marshall McEwan left his hometown at age eighteen, he vowed never to return. The trauma that drove him away ultimately spurred him to become one of the most successful journalists in Washington D.C. But just as the political chaos in the nation’s capital lifts him to new heights, Marshall is forced to return home in spite of his boyhood vow.

    His father is dying, his mother is struggling to keep the family newspaper from failing, and the town is in the midst of an economic rebirth that might be built upon crimes that reach into the state capitol—and perhaps even to Washington. More disturbing still, Marshall’s high school sweetheart, Jet, has married into the family of Max Matheson, patriarch of one of the families that rule Bienville through a shadow organization called the Bienville Poker Club.

    When archeologist Buck McKibben is murdered at a construction site, Bienville is thrown into chaos. The ensuing homicide investigation is soon derailed by a second crime that rocks the community to its core. Power broker Max Matheson’s wife has been shot dead in her own bed, and the only other person in it at the time was her husband, Max. Stranger still, Max demands that his daughter-on-law, Jet, defend him in court.

    As a journalist, Marshall knows all too well how the corrosive power of money and politics can sabotage investigations. Without telling a soul, he joins forces with Jet, who has lived for fifteen years at the heart of Max Matheson’s family, and begins digging into both murders. With Jet walking the dangerous road of an inside informer, they soon uncover a web of criminal schemes that undergird the town’s recent success. But these crimes pale in comparison to the secret at the heart of the Matheson family. When those who have remained silent for years dare to speak to Marshall, pressure begins to build like water against a crumbling dam.

    Marshall loses friends, family members, and finally even Jet, for no one in Bienville seems willing to endure the reckoning that the Poker Club has long deserved. And by the time Marshall grasps the long-buried truth, he would give almost anything not to have to face it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9780062824646
    Cemetery Road: A Novel
    Author

    Greg Iles

    Greg Iles has spent most of his life in Natchez, Mississippi. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, was the first of many New York Times bestsellers. His Natchez Burning trilogy continued the story of Penn Cage, the protagonist of The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, and #1 New York Times bestseller The Devil’s Punchbowl. Iles’s novels have been made into films and published in more than thirty-five countries. He is a member of the lit-rock group The Rock Bottom Remainders, lives in Natchez with his wife, and his three children.

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    Reviews for Cemetery Road

    4/5

    288 ratings32 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a great read with real life emotions, twists and turns, and a well-described story. The dialogues and suspense create an enjoyable experience. However, some readers were dissatisfied with the narrator's overdramatized style. Overall, this book is highly recommended for its excellent novel and engaging storyline.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Great listen. I'm going to get the book and read it.
    • 5/5
      Excellent novel. Great dialogues with the right amount of twists and turns in the story to crate suspense. I liked that none of the heroes are black or white but have guilt and shame that they carry with them. A great read.
    • 5/5
      One of his best! A page turner from the start.
    • 2/5
      I cannot stand Scott Brick. Every utterance is fraught. Nothing can be stated but must be entirely overdramatized. I had to quit. I just cannot listen to him.
    • 2/5
      I just couldn’t get into this book. It was wordy and the subject just kept jumping around from one place to a totally different one. I ended up skipping large sections but could never get back into it. I never finished it.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed this story a lot. Several twists & turns, mystery, suspense and a very good story line! Good Narrator too, subtle voice change between characters but not too much to sound artificial.
    • 5/5
      The characters are filled with real life emotions! Great book!
    • 5/5
      Best story I've read in a long time. Very well described but never overly so.

    • 1/5
      First one if his books that I didn’t like.... so much that I stopped listening after fours. Extremely dissatisfied
    • 3/5
      Marshall McEwan, a celebrated journalist, has come to his hometown of Bienville, Mississippi, to help with the care of his fatally ill father. Swearing he would never come back, he finds himself involved in searching for the person who murdered his childhood friend. As he searches for the murderer, he finds himself embroiled with the politics of the Poker Club.
    • 3/5
      This unabridged audio was read by Scott Brick. If it had been a stage production, Brick would be described as “chewing the scenery.” His over-emphasis of nearly every other word, along with his tremolo vocalizations, made what I think is probably a very good book a real chore to get through.
    • 4/5
      Good story. A little preachy in places and unnecessarily long.
    • 4/5
      A book full of a wide range of melodramatic twists and themes; interesting narrative that kept my interest. However, the book was about 100 pages too long and overly plotted!
    • 4/5
      My 1st Greg Iles; a good mix of love story, mystery, family drama and friendship. Got pretty crazy and I am not so sure I agree with how the journalist handled the information. In this day in age, I Think we need the Truth to come out... no matter what or who is collateral damage - there is too much at risk... This was a very well thought out plot that had a lot of twists and turns. I enjoyed it!
    • 2/5
      Although this book was set in my home state of Mississippi, I did not enjoy it or the characters. The lead character who is a newspaperman who sees a body and knows it must have come from not that far away. He uses his drone to spy on the "bad ole boys." However, he's not any better than they are. All the characters are despicable, and I really don't care one iota about what happens to them. The author uses far too much foul language for my taste, and I will not read more works by him. My mom would tell him to wash his mouth out with soap. I received this through a GoodReads giveaway with no obligation to review it although the publisher appreciates them.
    • 3/5
      Greg Iles tells an interesting story, but drones on and on when the story should have ended. The language and the graphic scenes provide the gore and excitement that are necessary for current readers, but this reader becomes insulted with the repeated language. The main female character, Jet Turner Matheson, stands as an evil vixen, that the reader sees as the main threat for goodness for Marshall McEwan. Greg Iles shows greed and meanness of his characters, and very little goodness leaks through the holes.
    • 4/5
      Iles knows how to write about the South, although that's not his only talent or area of expertise. He excels at deep character development, complex plots and accurate depictions of race relations during the 1960's. He's a masterful storyteller, a literary Bo Jackson. Once again he does not disappoint. The only very small negative for me was that at some points the book was a little slow and plodding, but not enough to distract. Four and half stars.
    • 3/5
      I felt the story took too long to develop
    • 5/5
      Stirring action throughout. The fast pace was accelerated by frequent twists and turns that all made sense. I couldn't put the book down. Definitely one of Iles' best.
    • 3/5
      This book pissedme off when I finished it. Not because it was badly written,but just the opposite. Greg Illes is a hell of a writer with a gift for making you care about his characters. Unfortunately he's not quite as deft with a plot.

      Cementary Road is a serviceable mystery/suspence novel. While the characters are not terribly fleshed out, Illes gets you to invest in them. But that investment can't cover up the plot holes or where characters decisions exist merely to advance the plot. There were serveral times I found myself pausing and think,"huh?" only to have Illes skill as a writer push me past and continue to move forward in the tale. In a lesser writeres hands the results would be....well to be honest...an Ace Atkins book.

      Illes keeps touting his books as the next great Southern Gothic and I believe he has such a book in him. This ain't it. This is a higher grade beach read with some interesting history included. Read it, enjoy it, but be careful with making too great an investment.
    • 4/5
      Cemetery Road by Greg Iles is a 2019 William Morrow publication.

      Small town corruption, family tragedies, betrayals, and murder-

      In other words- quintessential Greg Iles.

      In this standalone novel, award winning journalist, Marshall McEwan, returns home to Bienville, Mississippi to be closer to his parents after his estranged father is diagnosed with Parkinson’s. At least that’s what he tells himself. Deep in his heart, however, he acknowledges an ulterior motive- reuniting with his first love- a woman named Jet, who just happens to be married to his best friend.

      But when Buck Ferris, a man who had a strong influence on Marshall, is found dead, Marshall is convinced foul play is at hand. But who would want to kill Buck and why?

      Well, Buck may have made a discovery that could derail the proposed installation of a paper mill, which would breathe new life into the slowly dying town of Bienville. A lot is at stake, and the town’s powerful ‘Poker Club’ will make sure the Chinese investors aren’t scared off, which means Buck might have been collateral damage.

      As Marshall digs deeper into the circumstances of Buck’s death, the Poker Club members do what they do best- make threats, intimidate, bully, and blackmail, and maybe even murder, anyone who stands in their way- and Marshall and all his dark secrets is in their crosshairs.

      Cemetery Road is not just a suspenseful thriller, with all its many twists and turns, and layers of deceptions. It is also a stellar piece of southern fiction, with Gothic elements that only the south can lay claim to.

      The characters are flawed- every single one of them- some more than others, and Marshall, no saint himself, is forced to stare his demons in the face, to make eye contact with them, as everything he thought he knew wavers and fades like a mirage in the desert.

      Under scrutiny is the moral compromises made in the name of capitalism, the mythology of our youth, the hope of recapturing a lost opportunity, while trying to do what is right for all concerned. For Marshall, it is more personal, perhaps, as he is also coping with deeply embedded grief and carrying a heavy burden of guilt bestowed upon him by his embittered father.

      However, he is also trying to save his father's newspaper, cover his own butt, and protect the women he loves.

      I often found myself on the edge of my seat, as Marshall survives one major event after another by the seat of his pants, and as the shock waves reverberate relentlessly. It was hard to put the book down for any length of time.

      At the end of the day, Iles proves, yet again, his intimate knowledge of the old southern realities, still prevalent and still thriving. But, at the end of the day, his characters, though bruised and bleeding, may finally shake off the ghosts of the past, each in his or her own way, while southern style justice continues to work in the most mysterious of ways.
    • 4/5
      Wow, this was quite a novel. This is the first book I have read by Greg Iles, but I am anxious to read more of his stories. Iles weaves a tale of deceit and distrust in the deep South along the Mississippi River. His tale follows Marshall McEwen, a journalist, as he seeks to say farewell to his father who is dying. He and his father have had a tortured relationship, ever since Marshall's brother, Adam, died when he was young. Fast forward to 2018, when Marshall leaves a promising career in DC to return to Mississippi to run the newspaper his father can no longer manage. Marshall comes into contact with The Poker Club, a group of good ole boys who run the town of Bienville, with shady dealings. Once Marshall's surrogate father, Buck Ferris, is found dead, Marshall is pulled more deeply into the evil of the club. He also is betraying his best friend, Paul, by having an affair with Paul's wife, Jet. So much more lies beneath the surface of this group, leading to an explosive confrontation.
      Iles writes with a knowledge of the south, its biases, and its in-bred thoughts. I liked his political commentary as well. Very enjoyable and complex story.
      #CemeteryRoad #GregIles
    • 3/5
      An atmospheric novel in small Mississippi. It's strongly written with some interesting development for some of the characters.

      I found most of the bad-guy characters to be too unbelievable and that detracted from the otherwise strong writing. Some of the plot turns and twists just made little sense to me.
    • 4/5
      Greg Iles knows the south - warts and all - and he writes unsparingly. Lots of twists and turn make this novel a compulsive read.
    • 4/5
      Where to start. The story plot was good--lots of twists, turns, lies, manipulation and back-stabbing to keep the reader interested EXCEPT for the looong, wordy, boring parts which comprise easily half the book. Almost 600 pages--it's like the author's goal was to fill up a certain number of pages by droning on and on with detailed descriptions of every road, path, intersection and highway in Mississippi. Could have been a wild ride if someone had just told him to cut it by half and leave out some of the deadly dull parts, and ease up on the graphic sex.
      Thank you, LibraryThing for this Advance Reader's Edition.
    • 3/5
      A small southern town in Mississippi with group of local, corrupt businessmen and a local Pulitzer prize winning local hero who gets caught up in a love triangle with his best friend’s wife. Moral dilemmas involving illegal activities to secure a Chinese paper mill for the town and an extramarital affair that has consequences for all involved drive the story.

      There are passages in the book that kept me riveted, in particular the flashbacks to life changing childhood experiences and the subject matter for his Pulitzer prize winning book. There were also passages that contained too many metaphors and deep thoughts that dragged the story down. They could have been skipped or skimmed without detracting from the story.

      I thought the book meandered towards the middle but then came together at the end for a satisfying ending that was a bit convoluted but kept me turning the pages to get there.

      Some political opinions were inserted that added nothing to the story, but I have come to expect that lately from many writers and usually try to ignore it.

      I would recommend this book for anyone who likes the suspense-thriller genre.
    • 4/5
      Greg Iles' Cemetery Road is enjoyable if a bit formulaic. Set in the Mississippi that he knows and depicts well, Cemetery Road contains the usual Southern stock characters - corrupt politicians, sexy bad girl, alcoholic newspaperman. But to give Iles credit, they're fun in fiction - if not so much in real life.

      The plot hinges on a murder and the greed that comes with bringing a Chinese paper pulp mill to a small Southern town. There's obviously money to be made by those in the know if they're ruthless enough to destroy naysayers. And the body count commences.

      It's not a great book, but, in many ways, it's true to its time and place and does neither a disservice. Read and enjoy.
    • 4/5
      An excellent new book by an author who knows how to write about the south.
      Marshall McEwan has returned to Bienville, Mississippi to run the family newspaper for his critically ill father. Marshall is coming out of politically charged Washington journalism and he wants this trip home to be short.
      Once he is home, Marshall renews a love affair with his best friend’s wife.

      Bienville is about to be named the site of a paper mill owned by Chinese investors.
      The Poker Club of Bienville, the local good old boy power, have worked long and hard , greased all the wheels, bought all the adjacent properties and now sit ready to add millions to their wealth.

      The only blip they see on the horizon that might cause them any problems is the archeological find made by the old Boy Scout leader/ archeologist, Buck Ferris. Buck is killed , no more problem except that he was a mentor and good friend of Marshall’s.

      Marshall sets out to investigate and the story goes from there. Fast paced, well written by an author who has proven once again what an exceptional storyteller he is.
      Read as an ARC from LibraryThing.
    • 3/5
      I didn't love this book, but my reasons are more a reflection of my reading preferences than any flaws in the writing.

      This book is highly atmospheric and descriptive. My copy is 591 pages, and I could have easily done without about 300 of them. We have a lot of detail on setting, with both the current condition of the area and its history. A whole lot of history. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a nonfiction book. Then we have a whole lot of backstory. We're constantly traveling back to various times in the main character's life, and we're given immense detail on past events. This sort of sweeping saga works okay in historical fiction, but I'm not a fan of this tactic with suspense novels.

      Because of all the detail and backstory, the pace is far too slow to call this suspense. It's an extraordinarily slow burn.

      Then there's the issue of the main character. I didn't like him all that much.

      As I mentioned, these issues are specific to my taste. The writing itself is quite good. If you enjoy this type of sweeping saga, definitely give this one a try.

      *I received an ARC from the publisher.*
    • 5/5
      I dont like to review a book by explaining what its about. All you have to do is read the back cover to get the hint, I would not want to give the story away.
      I'm a big fan of Greg Iles. I have read every book he has written. When I started reading the first few chapters I started to feel like I was getting a history lesson and was worried I wasn't going to like this book. I have no idea why I had any doubts. This was a truly amazing book. I couldn't put it down. It had me sitting on the end of my seat and staying up late to find out what happens next. I very rarely give a book 5 stars but this one deserves it. Greg Iles is a fantastic author.
      I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery, suspense and history.