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The Death Factory: A Penn Cage Novella
The Death Factory: A Penn Cage Novella
The Death Factory: A Penn Cage Novella
Ebook128 pages2 hours

The Death Factory: A Penn Cage Novella

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About this ebook

Don’t miss the latest Natchez Burning novel, SOUTHERN MAN

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy—Natchez Burning, The Bone Tree, and the upcoming Mississippi Blood—comes this e-original novella featuring former prosecutor Penn Cage, a story of family secrets and justice denied, plus an excerpt from Natchez Burning.

Death is the end, and if a man doesn't speak before it silences him, then his deepest secrets go with him.

When a heart attack sends Penn's father, Tom Cage, to the ER, Tom begs that his son be brought to his side to hear a dying declaration. But when Penn arrives, Tom denies ever making the request—keeping his secrets for another day.

The emergency hurls Penn back to a chilling case in Houston, where he worked in a DA's office known as the "death factory," which sent more killers to death row than any other in America. While Penn cares for his ailing wife, a tormented forensic technician brings him evidence of a crime lab in chaos, throwing past convictions into doubt and begging Penn to prevent an imminent travesty of justice. With the desperation of a man fighting death in his own home, Penn must find a way to bring the machinery of the death factory to a halt.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 18, 2014
ISBN9780062336682
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 The Death Factory

Rating: 3.9166666666666665 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I don't usually like or read the Novellas within series but read this one as the library had a copy. Have to say I loved this one, which I think has set it up nicely for the next book & linked in very well with the previous book. Great emotions were exposed in this book about events around the death of Penn's wife (which happened before the first book in the series) and sone of the reasons Penn went back to Natchez other than his wife's death.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't think anyone could be a real crime fiction lover and not be aware of Greg Iles. Until now, that's all I was-- aware-- and since Iles tends to write quite weighty tomes, I decided to read this novella to see if I wanted to read more. What I found was a well-told tale with lyrical descriptive passages and a main character I quickly grew to like. The storytelling flowed well, and the plot certainly kept my attention, especially with its emotional elements concerning Penn's father and wife. All my reactions were positive but for some strange reason, Penn didn't set my world on fire. As much as I liked him, I have no real burning desire to read more (although I may very well do so). This is a reaction I very seldom have so I'll have to ponder it a bit more. I may yet become a Penn Cage fan. Only time will tell.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    You may remember me raving about Greg Iles' new book Natchez Burning - the first in a planned trilogy. I only discovered after reading the book that Iles had penned an 'in-between' Penn Cage novella called The Death Factory that is set just before the beginning of Natchez Burning. Before returning to Natchez, Penn worked in a DA's office that became known as The Death Factory - that office sent more people to death row than any other. But when an evidence tech still working there becomes concerned that sloppy evidence handling has put an innocent man behind bars, it is Penn he turns to - not his current employer. For those that haven't yet read Natchez Burning, this is a great 'opening' chapter for that book, setting the scene in so many ways. We learn of Tom Cage's illness, and wonder what it is he wanted to tell Penn, see more of Penn's brother Jack and get the full story of Penn's wife's illness and death. And for those new to this series (!!) it's a great introduction to this fantastic character and series. And, there's a great case to boot! Iles's stories are simply a joy to read or listen to. The Death Factory will only whet your appetite for the main course - Natchez Burning. However, that being said, I listened to The Death Factory after reading Natchez Burning, and still hugely enjoyed it. More like dessert for me. As I said, I did choose to listen. The reader is David LeDoux. He has a great voice with a lovely gravely undertone that just resonates. His southern accent is not overdone or affected, but is understated and just right.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After reading Greg Iles’ Natchez Burning (Penn Cage #4, which I loved, a 5 Star!), was unaware there was a novella,THE DEATH FACTORY Penn Cage #3.5, so decided to buy the audiobook, as did not want to miss a thing. I am playing catch up, as usual, I start with the newest releases and work my way backwards. Now have to go back to read 1-3.

    Penn Cage, a former prosecutor is back with a family of dark secrets, when Tom (Penn’s dad-physician) is taken to the hospital with a scare, and has a dying wish, or so he thinks but says he cannot recall and has no secret. Cage had returned previously to his native home town, Natchez, Mississippi and became the city's mayor.

    Tom's brother Jack arrives in town and Penn goes back to his time in Houston, TX, Sarah’s death (cancer), and coping with their daughter, and previous case in Houston known as the Death Factory (sending a ton of killers to death row), on the basis of evidence, some of which may have been tainted.

    A great teaser for Natchez Burning and highly recommend the audiobook with narrator, David Ledoux, as he keeps the suspense high with a pleasant voice (listened to the audio version of both)! Love Penn Cage’s character and Tom!

    Looking forward to reading Bone Tree #5 (2015) and Unwritten Laws #6 (2016).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This Penn Cage novella is a fine example of the bittersweet and tenuous nature of life. Iles is able to somehow fit themes of corruption, loss, determination, and survival into a very short literary space. It isn't my favorite by this author, primarily because the length left me disappointed, wanting the depth and complexity he usually brings to his writing. It was meaty, nonetheles
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Even in a short story Iles shines. Terrific book had me involved from the first age.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I don't like giving any Iles creation just 3 stars, but I couldn't go 4 on this one. Maybe because it's a novella or because I read it out of order. At any rate, the whole Penn Cage series is simply wonderful...just be sure you start at the beginning and go through in the proper order!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Penn's father has had a heart attack and wants to see him. As his father recovers Penn goes with his uncle and the two talk. Penn relates the story of a case that happened while his wife was dying. Penn discusses his actions and feelings at the time.

Book preview

The Death Factory - Greg Iles

Contents

The Death Factory

Excerpt From Southern Man

Thursday

Chapter 1

Saturday

Chapter 2

About the Author

Also by Greg Iles

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

THE DEATH FACTORY

WHEN YOU’RE TOLD that your dying father has something important to say to you before he passes, two feelings flash through you: first, the sense that you’re in an Alexandre Dumas novel, that some momentous family secret is about to be revealed—­the lost inheritance, your true paternity, something like that. But once that passes, you realize that such a conversation is only natural. Because death is the end, and if a man doesn’t speak before it silences him, then the things he holds closest die with him.

In a way, I’d been expecting my father to die since I was a senior in high school, when he had his first heart attack. By age fifty he’d had a triple bypass, when the operation was far riskier than it is now. But Tom Cage was nothing if not stubborn. No matter what setbacks he endured after that operation (and there were many), he just kept practicing medicine. Even with diabetes and severe arthritis, he outlived my wife, who was born thirty years after him. And when I moved back to my Mississippi hometown with my daughter, who’d become so paralyzed by grief that she couldn’t leave my side, it was Dad and Mom who accomplished the miracle that no therapist in Houston had been able to manage: returning a grieving child to normalcy. Seven years after that, when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and when, as mayor, I began fighting to get basic ser­vices like electricity restored to Natchez, my father—­by then seventy-­three—­was still beside me, helping coordinate the effort to get critical drugs to displaced storm victims who had fled north to my hometown.

But this morning, as my fiancée, Caitlin Masters, and I stood in a boat on the Mississippi River, spreading the ashes of a young woman who had died for helping a friend of mine expose a ruinous evil in our midst, I got the call I’d been dreading for years. Dad had collapsed at his office. Only swift CPR by his chief nurse and defibrillation by his partner had stabilized him sufficiently to reach the ER. When Mom called me off the river, she told me Dad was sure he was going to die and needed speak to me—­and only me—­before the end. I needed to get there as fast as I could.

After Caitlin and I raced back to shore and docked the boat, I floored my Audi all the way to the hospital. For the twenty-­five minutes that took, I was certain I would arrive too late. For twenty minutes, my father was dead to me. Yet when Caitlin and I sprinted into the intensive care unit, I was informed that despite suffering a serious myocardial infarction, Dad was alive and had a chance to survive. Natchez’s sole cardiologist had just taken off from the local airport to fly his family to Walt Disney World when the ER called his cell phone and told him my father was being brought in with a heart attack. Peter Bruen had immediately landed his plane and raced to the hospital. Within minutes he’d placed a new stent in one of Dad’s major vessels—­a procedure almost never performed in Natchez, only in nearby cities like Brookhaven or Jackson—­and that made the difference between life and death.

Bruen was completing that procedure when I reached the hospital. A whispering crowd had already gathered outside the cardiac cath lab, as doctors and nurses waited to hear the fate of one of their own, a man who had practiced medicine in Natchez for more than four decades and in the army before that. Everyone fell silent as they wheeled Dad out on a gurney and transferred him to the ICU; then restrained applause broke out as he passed from view and Dr. Bruen appeared.

During my first visit to Dad’s bedside, I was shocked. His white beard was always well trimmed, but now it looked oddly unkempt, his skin white and waxy. I took his cold hand, whispered that I was there, and asked what he needed to tell me. He opened his eyes and blinked several times, then pointed at his throat. I placed an ice chip in his mouth and repeated the question. He looked at my mother beside me, then croaked, What are you talking about?

I looked back at my mother, then after some hesitation asked her to leave me alone with him. Reluctantly, she agreed. After I assured Dad that we were alone, I asked once more what he’d needed to tell me. He said he had no memory of saying anything like that to my mother. I decided to let it go for the moment, and he was obviously relieved.

That was five hours ago.

The first two passed like a death watch, as a solemn parade of hospital workers visited the ICU, quietly paying their respects. But as time slipped by and more lab tests came in, Dr. Bruen came to believe that yet again—­against the odds—­my father would live to fight another day. During my second visit to the bedside, Caitlin and I told Dad and my mother that only hours earlier we had decided to get married. After a seven-­year relationship, that news should have seemed anticlimactic, but somehow it didn’t. It actually brought a weak smile to my father’s face, and my mother cried, knowing how badly my eleven-­year-­old daughter has been wanting that. We decided to wait to tell Annie about both the engagement and Dad’s heart attack. For the time being, Caitlin would pick her up from school and take her back to work with her.

I’ve spent much of the time since making the necessary phone calls of a family crisis; various relatives are now arranging to fly in from around the country. Getting to Natchez in a hurry can be difficult. My older sister, who teaches American literature in England, boarded a Virgin Airways flight in London an hour ago, but that’s only the beginning of the logistical legerdemain it will take to bring her here by tomorrow afternoon. My dad’s two brothers should make it sooner, but probably not until ten or eleven tonight.

My mother hasn’t left Dad’s bedside. The hospital administrators have suspended their visitation rules for her, if for no one else. Had they not, they probably would have had to arrest her. Seventy-­one herself, Peggy Cage has already taken on a ghostly appearance, her skin almost transparent, her eyes alternately hyperalert with fear and clouded by fatigue. Caitlin and I have tried to get Mom to yield her place, but she will not be moved. At 2:45 P.M. Caitlin left to pick up Annie and return to her newspaper, the Natchez Examiner, to manage the story that broke five days before Dad’s heart attack, one in which she herself played a part, and as a result almost died.

I, too, played a central role in that case, but while I’ve been besieged by interview requests, I’ve declined them all. Hardly enough time has passed for me to process the enormity of what took place within the bounds of our little city, the oldest continuous settlement on the Mississippi River. From inside the Magnolia Queen—­a riverboat gambling casino docked at Natchez—­an international crime ring secretly ran a high-­end dogfighting and prostitution operation that attracted high-­stakes gamblers of all kinds: high-­rollers from Las Vegas, NFL players, rap artists, and dogfighters from around the world. The smashing of that ring has led to the exposure of a Chinese connection: a money-­laundering, human-­smuggling kingpin from Macao named Edward Po, whom the Justice Department and the CIA have been pursuing for years. With the help of her father’s media group, Caitlin has pushed this story as hard as she can, earning the enmity of the U.S. intelligence establishment in the process.

Both Caitlin and I lost friends during that case, and partly as a result of that, I changed my earlier decision to resign as mayor. Even my father urged me to stay the course and serve out the remaining two years of my term, despite his initial advice that I not seek the job in the first place. To my surprise, I’ve learned that the passion of a crusade to save one’s hometown can be a contagious thing.

My present dilemma is how to persuade my mother to leave Dad’s bedside long enough for me to ask him again what he needed to tell me. Perhaps the passage of time has improved his short-­term memory, or eased whatever anxiety is keeping him quiet. Mom has scarcely taken a bite off the trays the nurses have brought, nor has she tasted the fare Caitlin brought in from a local restaurant. For now, I’m working in an uncomfortable chair in the single vacant patient cubicle in the ICU, which has become our informal command center for coordinating this crisis.

My PowerBook lies on the bed, along with my BlackBerry, a Martin Cruz Smith paperback, today’s Examiner, and work papers from City Hall. An hour ago, unable to deal with the constant barrage of calls from around the state and country, I switched my phone to silent and tried to focus on the novel. My effort was in vain. Again and again I found myself reading the same page while my mind wandered, filling with violent, rushing images from the past ten days. At one time or another during that period, all my family members were put under threat of death, two close friends of mine were killed, and I ultimately had to kill a man. For the first ­couple of days after that event, I felt I was dealing with it pretty well. But

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