GREG ILES: R.I.P.

Greg Iles, Mississippi author of several New York Times best-selling novels, died yesterday, at the age of 65.  He had multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. Greg was one of the nicest, kindest, and supportive people, as well as a great writer. He will be missed. My sympathy and love go out to his friends and family.

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960, where his father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic during the height of the Cold War. His mother was raised on a subsistence farm in Louisiana and began picking cotton at the age of three. Iles spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983.  While attending Ole Miss, Greg lived in the cabin where William Faulkner and his brothers listened to countless stories told by “Mammy Callie,” their beloved nanny, who had been born enslaved.

 

Iles wrote his first novel in 1993, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, which became the first of seventeen New York Times bestsellers. Primarily set in the Deep South, his later novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide.  His new novel will continue the story of Penn Cage, after the epic trilogy that ended with 

New York Times #1 bestseller Mississippi Blood. 

Greg was also a member of The Rock Bottom Remainders, a charitable rock group made up of authors. Bandmates included Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Dave Barry. 

He is survived by his wife Caroline and four children.