The body of a teenage girl is found in St. Catherine&8217;s Creek. She&8217;s been murdered and it&8217;s up to Penn Cage to figure out who did it.

The premise of Greg Iles&8217; new thriller &8220;Turning Angel&8221; doesn&8217;t seem to have much to it.

But then again, the Trojans thought the same thing about that big wooden horse they rolled into town.

Fans of Iles&8217; work will know better than to expect a straight forward crime-investigation-resolution story, but some might be surprised by where he takes them on this trip.

For starters, Cage&8217;s childhood friend, the esteemed Dr. Drew Elliot, confesses to Cage that he had been sleeping with the 17-year-old decedent. Not only that, he had been planning on moving away with her when she started college.

Gulp.

Cage, a retired prosecutor who starred in Iles&8217; &8220;The Quiet Game,&8221; doesn&8217;t condone his friend&8217;s behavior, but when the district attorney starts pointing the finger at Elliot, well

&8230; he is the hero, isn&8217;t he?

To get to the bottom of the case, Cage will have to dive into the world of the St. Stephen&8217;s School teenager, and it&8217;s not a world parents will recognize.

&8220;The irony is that this book won&8217;t shock any high school kids, but it will shock their parents,&8221; Iles said.

Just because the school resembles a certain private school on the south end of town and some of the shenanigans of the kids sound pretty plausible, don&8217;t go thinking Iles is trying to demonize any particular institution.

And the high school kids of this fictional Natchez are into some pretty heavy stuff.

And while some of it might shock parents, Iles says it exists, and he&8217;s only shedding some light on it.

&8220;There is a vast gulf that exists between the baby boomers and their kids; they have to realize that there&8217;s a lot they don&8217;t know,&8221; he said.

Iles has never shied away from controversial topics. An unsolved murder from the civil rights era was at the center of &8220;The Quiet Game&8221; and sexual abuse of children is the crux of &8220;Blood Memory.&8221;

But &8220;Turning Angel&8221; delves into subject matter that hits pretty close to home for a large part of the audience, which is the point.

&8220;This book is about appearance versus reality. It&8217;s about what&8217;s underneath, the Turning Angel statue is not what it seems and these high school kids are not what they seem, the parents are not what they seem and the city of Natchez is not what it seems.&8221;

Indeed.

But while the statue seems to watch over the players in the story, it is up to the top-flight lawyer Cage to save the day for his friend.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the trial.

If you want to read about good and evil trading objections in court, you&8217;ll have to turn elsewhere, because Iles isn&8217;t about to go down the Grisham path.

&8220;I was never going to write about another trial,&8221; he said. &8220;Not that I have anything against Grisham, we&8217;re friends.&8221;

Without giving too much away, suffice it to say Iles trades in the legal pads and &8220;objections!&8221; for car batteries, methadone and maybe a gun or two to climax &8220;Turning Angel.&8221;

Iles knows there might be some aspects of the novel that don&8217;t sit well with some, but said he isn&8217;t worried breaking taboos.

&8220;As a writer you have a certain amount of power because you&8217;re immune to the cultural penalties that are put on people who talk about things that aren&8217;t supposed to be talked about.&8221;

And talking is all he&8217;s doing.

The 44-year-old leads a placid family life coaching his kids&8217; sports teams, writing his books and helping his dentist/wife, Carrie, around the house.

The only craziness in his life &8212; outside of the normal dealings of the famous author &8212; is in his imagination &8230; just like in everyone else&8217;s.

&8220;I firmly believe that if the subconscious of the average person on the street &8212; including the people of Natchez &8212; were made public &8230; there are crimes in there,&8221; he said.

Judging from the way audiences gobble up his books, he&8217;s pretty much right on the money.

Although &8220;Turning Angel&8221; is not scheduled for release until Dec. 27, it will be available at a special benefit signing Friday at Trinity Episcopal School.

But while the timing is right, it may not make such a good stocking stuffer for grandma.

And that&8217;s coming from the author.

But for those on your list who crave taut thrillers, this could be the ticket.

Gripping?

It ought to come with a warning from the publisher: Do not open this book if you have anything scheduled for the next couple of days.