A Deadly Brew

THE DEVIL'S PUNCHBOWL

By Greg Iles

Scribner. 580 pp. $26.99

There is a lot going on in Greg Iles's third novel featuring Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, Miss., but finally it's a story about evil. Cage, a lawyer and successful novelist, has run for mayor of his home town to save it from troubles that he believes are largely caused by de facto school segregation. His challenge grows even greater when he confronts two Irishmen who run one of the floating gambling casinos that have done much to rejuvenate the Mississippi economy. Their boat, the Magnolia Queen, makes available illegal drugs, teenage prostitutes and dogfights to attract high rollers from out of state. When Cage tries to stop them, he finds that these two psychopaths will gladly murder, rape, torture, bribe and kidnap to maintain their power.

Some readers may toss the novel aside because of its scenes of horrific violence. Others will tolerate the violence because Iles is a talented writer who puts the horror in a believable context. Penn Cage is a solid portrait of a good man trying to do a hard job for a city he loves: "For sheer beauty Natchez is unmatched along the length of the river; with its commanding site above the river Mississippi it surpasses even New Orleans, and one would have to travel to Charleston or Savannah to find comparable architecture." Iles gives us a good sense of the city and the woes of being its mayor. Cage is also a widower trying to raise a beloved 11-year-old daughter. But everything he has accomplished, personally and politically, is imperiled by the two corrupt gamblers.

At the outset, a friend who works at the gambling casino tells Cage of illegality aboard the ship -- and in the wooded hideaways where dogfights are staged -- and soon that friend has been mauled to death by dogs. When Cage sets out to investigate the charges, the two gangsters visit his home. They come armed with guns, knives and a well-trained bully kutta, a Pakistani breed celebrated for its size, strength and fearlessness. The gangsters tell Cage that unless he does exactly as they say, they will not only murder him, they'll kill his daughter, parents and friends. Cage pretends to go along, but of course he intends to bring down the two, aided by some lethal friends in the world of private security. The rest of the novel details a gripping, often frightening clash between good and evil.

Evil seems to have the upper hand. We see an all-too-graphic dogfight and learn that the villains grab household pets off the streets to provide snacks for their pit bulls. We see women suffer in agonizing detail, among them a good-hearted but penniless stripper who goes to work on the casino ship only to be subjected to rape, torture and the threat of an attack by hungry dogs. These killer dogs are prominent in the novel, if only as tools used by despicable men. Even more awful creatures, alligators, also play a role -- they are the reptilian equivalent of the two villains. Cage tells us that "there's no sight quite like the dozens of red eyes hovering just above water level among the twisted cypress trunks" of the Mississippi.

Early in the novel, Cage's journalist girlfriend argues that the villains must be brought to trial, not assassinated. Later, after she has suffered a great deal, Iles contrives to put her in a boat at night with one of her tormentors -- sadist, rapist, murderer -- and to give her the option of having him thrown to the waiting alligators. It's a gripping scene but not a pretty one. Unless you're an alligator.

Iles's writing held my interest even as I began to think he was moving past a serious look at depravity in favor of an exercise in cheap thrills. It's an old problem. Evil is a legitimate subject for fiction, but at what point, in relating horrors, particularly horrors against women, is the writer simply pandering? "The Devil's Punchbowl" is not without merit, but it's hard to think many women could read it with pleasure; and, even for us insensitive males, a strong stomach is useful.

Anderson can be reached at mondaythrillers@aol.com.