Title: Guilty In Mississippi
Author: Percy Lynchard
Publisher: Page Solutions
ISBN: 979-8-89633-122-3
Pages: 314
Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Crime
Reviewer: Joe Kilgore
Hollywood Book Reviews
A swelteringly hot summer in 1969 Mississippi is chronicled in author Percy Lynchard’s novel of crime, punishment, misplaced pride and bigoted prejudice. Any readers expecting flowery prose reminiscent of Southern gentility, Mint Juleps, and moss draped Magnolias, will quickly find this is a tale less about nostalgia and more about nasty goings-on. Few, if any, punches are pulled as Lynchard weaves an involving yarn of rape, murder, and malignant narrow-mindedness.
Paul Lane is a burned-out lawyer who nabs a job as an investigator in a small county’s District Attorney’s Office. He soon finds himself neck deep in a murder inquiry where he not only has to worry about solving the case but protecting a prime suspect as well. The local Sheriff is convinced, without evidence mind you, that the killing of a young white girl is obviously the work of a black man formerly convicted in a Peeping Tom incident. As Paul tries to keep the official from too readily jumping to conclusions, many in the local white populace are ready to take both the law and retribution into their own hands. Hands with small minds and big connections to friends and relatives who once wore white hoods, burned crosses, and practiced vigilante justice on those unlucky enough to be black. For some, fear and ignorance dissipate only at glacial speed, if ever.
Author Lynchard, to his credit, takes a winding, rather than linear approach, to plot, pacing, and characterization. Multiple questions emerge. Is the black ex-con more or less of a real suspect than the white mentally challenged man-child? Which side of the law is the Sheriff really on? How many of the townsfolk are involved? Is there a mole in the authorities’ midst tipping off the cunning conspirators? Is a second heinous crime the work of a copycat or is serial murder beginning?
Stylistically, the author has chosen to tell his tale realistically. Both prose and dialogue shun flourish for credibility. There’s a conversational quality to the writing that rings true. Scenes of violence are not whitewashed, but neither are they sensationalized. Repellent racial epithets abound however, just as they did in that particular time and place.
It’s virtually impossible to read a crime related novel about the South today without hearing echoes of John Grisham or conjuring up the ghost of William Faulkner. Lynchard, however, has managed to pen a story that pays homage to what has come before yet feels fresh and original at the same time. This is an engrossing tale which will have you turning pages rapidly to see what happens next, as well as catching you by surprise with an ending you won’t see coming.