Introducing... Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles

Introducing books by the first chapter or so...

Grief is the most solitary emotion; it makes islands of us all.

I've spent a lot of time visiting graves over the past few weeks. Some times with Annie, but mostly alone. The people who see me there give me a wide berth. I'm not sure why. For thirty miles around, almost everyone knows me. Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, Mississippi. When they avoid me as they do-- waving from a distance, if at all, then hurrying on their way-- I sometimes wonder if I have taken on the mantle of death. Jewel Washington, the county coroner and a true friend, pulled me aside in City Hall last week and told me I look like living proof that ghosts exist. Maybe they do. Since Caitlin died, I have felt nothing more than the ghost of myself.

Perhaps that's why I spend so much time visiting graves.

-- Mississippi Blood by Greg Iles