Greg Iles, the bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy (Natchez Burning, The Bone Tree, and Mississippi Blood) and other works, died August 15 after a decades-long battle with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, the Associated Press reported. He was 65. Born in Germany, Iles moved to Natchez, Miss., with his family when he was three and developed a deep connection with the region, the AP noted, adding that many of his stories are set in the state, including historical fiction suspense novels exploring race and class in the 1960s Jim Crow South.
His other books include Cemetery Road (2019), The Death Factory (2014), The Devil's Punchbowl (2009), Third Degree (2007), True Evil (2006), Turning Angel (2005), Blood Memory (2005), The Footprints of God (2003), The Quiet Game (1999), and Spandau Phoenix (1993).
In 2011, Iles lost his right leg below the knee, nearly died from a ruptured aorta and was in a coma for eight days after a traffic accident. He used the ensuing recovery time to write Natchez Burning, among other works. Iles was also a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a musical group featuring popular authors that raised more than two million dollars for charity between 1992 and 2015.
The Natchez Democrat noted that in a May 2024 interview after his final book, Southern Man, was published, Iles said he had intentionally put off a stem cell transplant in order to finish writing the book. Iles said he "waited to do the stem cell transplant, which some people will tell you is insane, but this book is so important. What it deals with is so dangerous and is what the country is dealing with right now. It's an important political novel. I was not going into a procedure like that, which could potentially kill me without it being finished."
In a social media post announcing Iles's death, Dan Conaway, his agent, described the author as "warm, funny, fearless, and completely sui generis. To be on the other end of the phone as he talked through character and plot, problem-solving on the fly, was to be witness to genius at work, plain and simple. As a writer he fused story-craft, bone-deep humanity, and a growing sense of moral and political responsibility with the ferocious precisions of a whirling dervish or a master watchmaker."
