Sitting on the wide veranda of his French colonial manor outside Natchez, Mississippi, overlooking a verdant, pastoral landscape, author Greg Iles is holding one of his most prized guitars—a McCollum baritone acoustic. Iles acquired the instrument, which was one of late California luthier Lance McCollum’s personal six strings, after putting to rest his most recent … Continue reading Greg Iles at the Crossroads of Destiny

Richard Grant pilots his dustbowl-gray pickup down Bee Lake Road, a faded blacktop buffered by flat Delta farmland and its namesake serpentine oxbow, a swampy memory left by the Yazoo River after it changed course years ago. Grant grew silent a few miles back, somewhere around Yazoo City. Moving away from Pluto, Miss., the setting … Continue reading Richard Grant’s Return to Pluto

Kenneth Hampton’s reputation for no-nonsense police work began just inside the Tchula city limits on two-lane Highway 12, when a motorist pulled a U-turn to avoid his police checkpoint. The driver, Earl Anderson, led Hampton and his fellow officers on a chase up the bluff and through the hills east of town, eventually dead-ending at … Continue reading Police Chief Walks Tall in Tchula

On an early autumn evening at Belhaven University, a medley of mixed-gray hair and the fresh faces of youth is present at the school’s annual homecoming celebration. It’s a decidedly well-behaved affair, a tapestry of buttoned plaids, modest dresses and mild manners. It feels postcard idyllic — exactly the place you wouldn’t mind leaving your … Continue reading Through the Wilderness with Harrison Scott Key