Master of the Delta

by Thomas H. Cook

Book Overview

In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father's Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige: teaching at the local high school. Conducting a class on historical evil, Jack... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151012547
• ISBN13: 9780151012541
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 367 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

master of the delta

I believe that Thomas H. Cook is the best writer in his genre writing today, and I have read everything of his. This is in keeping with the high literary qualaity of his work and did not disappoint me. I would hope that more people discover him and may write a book about him someday soon to help that happen.

Time changes everything but the past

The Master of the Backstory has done it again -- Cook has created a novel infused with a mystery that does not become solved until the very end. As I said in a review of another of his books, it is impossible to second guess this guy. His stories, set in the present, have been set in motion by events of the past, but every angle is not revealed until the final page, despite references to the outcomes of how the lives of subsidiary characters pan out, indicating that the story is being told from a perspective even further in the future.

Masterful mystery

Jack Branch has returned to his father's Delta estate to teach at the local high school. During his class on historical evil he's shocked to discover student Eddie is the son of local murderer the Coed Killer - and tries to mentor the boy to help him set a good example. When a friendship with the boy's father ensues, danger evolves in this masterful mystery recommended for any general-interest collection strong in novels and mysteries.

Forbear!

What a master we have in Thomas H. Cook. He is one whose new releases I read immediately. Jack Branch comes from prominence in the Mississippi Delta. After graduating from Vanderbilt College, Jack teaches a class on evil at Lakeland School. The children are from the poor side of town known as the Bridges. It comes to Jack's attention that one of his students is the son of a notorious local killer they call the Co-ed Killer. While the boy, Eddie Burns, is writing a report on his father for the class on evil, Jack is broadsided by an even more startling revelation about Eddie, one that will rock Jack's family to it's foundation. A story that is truly that - a story. Cook travels deep into the very being of the people of Master of the Delta until the darkness is all that remains. Be prepared to be swept away.

Master of the Mystery

The first element that always draws me into a Thomas H. Cook novel is his magnificent prose. Lush and musical, it's the perfect vehicle for his tales of buried sin and hidden guilt which often take place in the oldest and most haunted parts of our country. Master of the Delta is Cook's latest work, and it's a very strong addition to a truly distinguished body of work. Set in a small town in the Mississippi delta in 1954, it's narrated by Jack Branch, the scion of an upper crust family, who, from a somewhat condescending sense of duty, has, like his father before him, become a teacher in the local public high school. Deeply interested in the question of evil in an academic way, he's soon to encounter it in actuality. Jack learns that one of his more talented students, Eddie Miller, is the son of the notorious "Coed Killer," and encourages him to come to terms with his family's history by writing a paper on his father and his crimes. Eddie pursues his task diligently, and in so doing unearths old secrets that threaten the social order of the town. But along with his great prose, arresting characters and evocative settings, Cook is a masterful plotter, and events in Master of the Delta unfold in intriguing ways, the book concluding with one of his trademark twists, at once completely unexpected and totally logical. With his complex prose and almost overwhelming sense of the tragic, Cook may not appeal to readers who like their mysteries light and inconsequential, but those who aren't afraid of the dark will appreciate his masterful handling of every literary element and savor Master of the Delta as I did.