Mississippi Books In Order

Publication Order of Mississippi Books

When fans of Greg Iles talk about Mississippi, they are typically referring to a series of four books that the author published between 1997 and 2002. The books are psychological thrillers that are set in and around Mississippi.

+The Story
The Mississippi series isn’t a series in the strictest sense. The various books in the series have almost nothing of significance to do with each other. ‘Mortal Fear’, the first novel, kicks things off by introducing readers to Harper Cole.

A commodities trader by day, Harper spends a considerable portion of his time running an online service called EROS through which his exclusive collection of high-end clients manifest their most intimate sexual fantasies.

Harper has always operated EROS with little challenge, working alongside his fellow system operators to ensure that the celebrities and business personalities that visited the online resource could air their dirty little secrets in complete secrecy and safety.

Things take an unfortunate turn when some of Harper’s female clients unexpectedly disappear from the network. Harper’s attempts at querying the issue reveals that the women, six of them, had been murdered.

In reporting the matter to the police, Harper makes himself the prime suspect, a development that he must overcome in his efforts to stop a madman who might be killing his clients one after another.

Harper Cole, while engaging and captivating, has no connection of significance to Will and Karen Jennings, the protagonists of the second novel in the Mississippi series; and the couple has no association of note with Jordan Glass, the journalist from book 3 who plays the role of primary protagonist in a case that pits her against a demented killer.

Because the Mississippi books have no significant elements connecting them, they can be read in any order without debilitating one’s enjoyment.

It is worth noting that all the books in this series are psychological thrillers. At the center of each novel is some sort of force threatening to upend the protagonist’s life.

The heroes and heroines in question are just ordinary people. They have decent lives with healthy relationships. In fact, things are looking up for them. But then the unexpected happens and they are forced to contend with situations far beyond their normal parameters.

To survive, they have to match wits with a far more intelligent opponent, adapting to a rapidly changing landscape and depending on a whole load of luck to come out on top. The Mississippi books progress at a very fast pace.

From the moment the protagonist encounters the element threatening his way of life, each of the Mississippi novels does not let up, evolving with each new chapter, never giving the heroes and heroines of Greg Iles’ stories a chance to catch their breaths.

Whenever complaints arise, they tend to revolve around the fact that some of the scenarios Greg Iles creates require a suspension of disbelief. The author works hard to keep even the most ridiculous of his ideas grounded.

But sometimes he goes a little too far. Though, most such complainants will tell you that even the most farfetched of Greg Iles’ Mississippi books can be forgiven their foibles because of how entertaining Greg’s stories get.

+The Author
Greg Iles is an American author born in 1960 in Germany. Many of his childhood memories are about Mississippi where he grew up. The son of a physician who worked at the American Embassy in Stuttgart, Greg has always been an artist.

He spent a few years pursuing music, both as a performer and a writer. His eventual marriage drove him to abandon that life. This opened the way for the author to experiment with novels. Some of his most notable works were written after he sustained a life-threatening injury and had to spend a lot of time in recovery.

+Adaptations
’24 Hours’, the second novel in the Mississippi series, was adapted into a movie called ‘Trapped’. Written by Greg Iles himself and directed by Luis Mandoki, the movie, which featured the likes of Kevin Bacon and Courtney love, followed the exploits of a couple whose daughter is kidnapped by a gang of thieves.

+Mortal Fear
Harper Cole is a fairly unassuming commodities trader. No one would ever guess that he was the system operator of an online resource called EROS. EROS has a highly exclusive base of clients that include Hollywood celebrities each of whom flocks to Harper’s online resource for the opportunity it avails them to share their most intimate sexual secrets.

EROS is supposed to be an impenetrable lock box that guarantees both anonymity and security. Only Harper and his fellow operators know the secrets abounding on EROS, not to mention the real identities of their clients.

Harper begins to suspect that they might have been hacked when a number of female clients suddenly leave EROS. Initially, Harper doesn’t give the occurrence much thought.

But then a female EROS client of considerable fame is decapitated. Harper reaches out to the police and reports his suspicions. He learns that all the female clients who left EROS had been murdered in the most brutal fashion.

This is despite the fact that they all lived in different cities. More demented was the fact that whoever killed them took a strange trophy with him. With no obvious suspects, the police turn their sights on Harper.

The system operator must put his skills to the task of finding and capturing the madman who cracked his system before the police incarcerate him.

+24 Hours
Joey, his wife Cheryl and their cousin Huey spend their days finding new ways to take the children of wealthy families, eventually returning them after banking hefty ransoms. And the group has succeeded more often than they have failed.

So they have no reason to expect anything less than success when they come across Will and Karen Jennings. The couple is very financially stable. However, they never imagined that someone would study their movements, scrutinize their schedules and eventually initiate a strategy to kidnap their daughter Abby.

When the worst comes to pass, neither Joey nor his wife count on Will and Karen’s willingness to take extraordinary measures to get their daughter back.