Avail Yourself Times Witness Illustrated By Michael Malone Distributed In Hardcover

love the best of Malone's books, and this is one of them, I find them engrossing and enjoyable, Some readers, who read mysteries only for plot, will dislike this book for the complexity of the human interactions that surround the plot, but for me, any book without richly imagined characters who change and grow is a bit of a letdown.
Malone is known for writing novels,and his mysteries are fully formed novels as well, I have read this book more than once, and I continue to enjoy it upon rereading, Good writing Is Timeless

Second in this series of three books, book two is narrated by Cuddy who had become the chief of Police in Hillison NC.
Wonderful characters live their lives woven around the attempt to free an unjustly convicted black man on death row, Justices stumbles and bumbles its impure route to victory, A revisited read for me, its still a wonderful read, Malone is a recent find for me, and he's an amazing storyteller, The characters are vivid, and the setting is brought to life, Beautiful. This is the best of Malone's southern crime trilogy, It's the second in the series, The writing is very good, the characters richly drawn, and issues of social as well as criminal justice are thoughtfully engaged, Well done. Great book. Love it for the glimpses of North Carolina smalltown life that it gives, as well as the Big Themes it addresses Malone who lives in Hillsborough manages to keep the story and characters intimate while addresses topics of racism, classism, and the death penalty, among others.


A pageturner and definitely worth a read, So much more than a mysterywonderful character study as well, One of the best books I have read, The sequel to sitelinkUncivil Seasons, This time, it is Cuddy Mangum, now police chief in Hillston, who is the narrator, and the eccentric scion of North Carolina aristocracy Justin Savile, now married and an expectant father, is relegated to a minor role.
In this novel, George Hall, a black man on Death Row for the murder seven years previously of an offduty white cop in a bar in the black side of town, is given an unexpected reprieve by the governor.
The governor is running for reelection against war hero Andrew Brookside, whose heiress wife, Lee, just happens to be an old flame of Cuddys and whom he still loves desperately.
When Halls brother, a vocal activist, is shot and killed, Cuddy starts to uncover a vast web of conspiracy and crime, from gun smuggling out of a rich paper magnates factory, to political intrigues by white power militia yahoos, to attempted blackmail of the philandering Brookside, to underhanded brinksmanship by the governor.
After Cuddys friend, largerthanlife attorney Isaac Rosethorn, gets George Hall a new trial, some of these secrets threaten to come into the light, and Cuddy is targeted by the nowfugitive rogue cops.


Overpages with a cast of dozens, this opus evokes not just the south, or the American justice system, but all of lifes rich pageant: the tattered glory of very old, very rich families who believe their money grants them superiority the casual racism of the populace the institutionalized racism of the death penalty, especially in the south the dizzying highs and crushing lows of love won and lost.
There are no “good guys,” and characters who come into conflict with Cuddy are not straw men but fully realized characters who have their own ideals and morals.
Characters get married, have children, die Cuddy tries to maintain his equilibrium as he walks a fine line between his affair with Lee, providing protection to Brookside, who has been getting death threats, and uncovering possible malfeasance in his lovers husbands campaign.
Malone is a fine writer, capable of pathos, Wodehousian wit “Fatties whole body, of which there was an unbridled glut, relaxed with a shiver”, action, suspense, romance, and deep perspicacity.
Malone doesnt shy away from any issues the novel culminates in a searing courtroom speech at Halls retrial, then quietly notes that about a month after this sensationalist event, another black man was executed without fanfare.
This may not be the Great American Novel, but its a contender for the Great American Novel About Justice, Streetsmart and straightforward police chief Cuddy Mangum and his refined homicide detective Justin Savile V are determined to keep their towns cultural, political and racial divisions stableeven peaceful.
But when a young black activist is murdered while in the process of fighting for his brothers freedom from death row, the lines keeping Hillston, North Carolina, in balance start to crumble.


Thrust into a dirty political campaign and torn between his morals and his love for the wealthy and beautiful wife of an upandcoming politician, Cuddy must uncover the secrets that lie in his own backyard.


From highpowered and elegant country club ballrooms to dark and dangerous bar room corners, Malone weaves a mystery of plot and place where the difference between good and evil and right and wrong sometimes become indistinct.

The cover of the book has a quote from Booklist comparing this novel to "To Kill A Mockingbird, " I think that's a fair comparison although this will not have the stature of the classic, It's full of richly drawn Southern characters and has a great courtroom drama along with wonderful writing, I've said it before and will say it again that I think that Michael Malone deserves to be better known, This is one of Michael Malone's mystery novels not as funny as Handling Sin an all time favorite, but good nonetheless i found Cuddy Mangum a very likable main character.
This is a good mystery about a young, black, activist who is murdered and Cuddy's struggle to not only find the murderer, but sort out the obstacles thrown in his path.
This is one I wouldn't mind reading again, I've always liked Michael Malone because his writing is tamely eccentric and amusing, This is a departure from his usual madcap adventures, It's a wellwritten murder mystery with sharp descriptions and even pacing, Michael Malone knows what he's doing, However not to sound cynical or anything I've gotten just a little tired of reading another murder mystery about racial inequality that is solved, yet again, by a heroic white guy who battles the odds to bring justice to light.
Still, a good effort by Malone, Malone tackles his usual smalltown Southern characters and politics with something new: death row, Sounds like a tough mix, but Malone pulls this one off with his standard light air, "Time's Witness" was written in, but for some sad reason it is still relevant today, A man has been seven years on death row for the shooting of a out of uniform cop after a brawl, However, the cop was white, the man was black, the state was North Carolina and this was no brawl, I know, ancient history right

I have no idea why Malone's work has not been filmed, Not that these books need the validation of Hollywood, they exist perfectly well without Tinseltown, But geez, with the right director/casting this book in particular would be a joy to see as a movie or a TV miniseries, An exhausting read, completed for a Let's Talk About It conversation to occur in New Bern on September,, There is apage novel somewhere inside thesepages, and it is a sorry thing that Malone did not cut the excess, the smartass dialogue, the Southern

flamboyance, and the multiple characters whose contributions to the narrative are negligible clutter.
The redemption comes from the women, the fine court scenes, and the persistent but too often obscured theme of conscience throughout the book, For a book about race, too small a voice is given to AfricanAmerican characters for a book about capital punishment, too little attention is given to the deep roots of injustice and in a book about the conventions of racism, the swampland of vile politics is not drained.
Having both brains and spine, the main character does not need the lip, Malone, however, is beguiling to readers of New South fiction, a brand I have unfortunately found to have both light charm and even lighter consequence, Still, I think we will have a good conversation, with enthusiastic readers, in whom I take constant delight, Plain and simple, Times Witness is a romance, Not a bodice ripper romance, more of a politicosmalltown ripper, A liberal southern cast against type police chief plays more than footsie with the soontobe governors wife his head detective has reeled in an exfirebrand red, helping her become a comfortable middle class state legislator but fighting for leftie causes one cop courts another and they do the baby first marriage and the next door neighbor has the woohoos for the police chief whenever possible.
Thats a romance, even though the books first half plays with being a police procedural and the second, a courtroom drama
The supporting cast: racism, Klan, militias, the power elite, politics, and blacks in North Carolina.
The stereotypes: the Jewish smart lawyer, the ambitious prosecutor, the black pimp, the killer on death row trying for a last minute reprieve, the schoolboylooking priest, But even with all this, the book moves along smartly through itsplus pages, You can see why Malone was such a hit writing soap operas, This could be one hot miniseries,
The best of the three in this series, A great readMichael Malone is the perfect "beach" read for people who like good writing, He's an amazing southern story teller, really very funny, and you end up just flying through his books, I'm usually not a mystery fan, but I liked this one, I really got into the southern setting and the quirky people, Michael Malone's is pretty witty, even when murder is involved, I really liked this one, not just because it was set in Hillsborough ok, it was "Hillston", but still, . Good story all around mystery, race issues, southern traditions, a little romance, I read this book as a selection chosen by my book club, although I'd originally read it when it was first published in the lates, Although there was a huge cast of characters, the author made each character distinct,

Without being pedantic or doctrinaire, the author uses the story line to show, rather than tell, his philosophy: that the superrich use racism to keep poor and workingclass whites and AfricanAmericans divided.
This is a singularly significant premise at this time, as we note the way in which women's rights, religious bigotry, and other issues have been added to the arsenal.


I don't want to leave the impression that this is a grim tale, The author has a unique sense of humor, and at times, his characters are almost too witty, as if they'd stepped into the pages of the novel from a stage where they'd been doing improv.
I enjoy this style of humor, but others may not,

Overall, this is a big, richly dramatic, and greatly satisfying book, I've previously read thest of the Justin and Cuddy books, I enjoyed this one as much as 'Uncivil Seasons', I like the story as well as the author's talent at writing dialogue, An enjoyable whodunit.

Time's Witness is more a Cuddy focused book and like 'Uncivil Seasons' it takes a bit for the boiler to heat up before the steam really pours out.
There's a lot of steam,

I look forward to reading 'First Lady', . . I think have a pretty fair notion of who 'First Lady' might be, .