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Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia
Books: Travel: Bowling Green: Item 8
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Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafiaby Edward Humes
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful: Triumph Of Courage, August 11, 2000 Reviewer:Jon C. Morgan (Montgomery, Alabama United States) - This book chronicles the most heinous crime imaginable, with all the attendant depravations of avarice, cowardice, overweening ambition, apathy and the cruel devaluation of human life. Yet, in detailing this tragedy, Humes manages to elevate the courage of the Sherry daughters, making their faith and persistence transcendent and, ultimately, triumphant over the squalid machinations of the co-conspirators and the pathetic recalcitrance of their sympathizers and enablers. While Humes does not slight the work of law enforcement, per se, he leaves the reader little doubt as to the identities of those who helped, those who hurt and those whose actions were little short of obstruction. The history of this case has proven Humes' original edition fundamentally correct. As one who knows no one connected in any way with this case, it is evident to this reader that had the Sherry daughters taken Halat's post-mortem advice, there would be no book to review. Thus, these ladies' journey toward justice is no less than the story of the case. In the telling, Humes reveals to us how we all would like to think we would act, should we be so unfortunately stricken.
Product Review
Biloxi, Mississippi, has a "strip" of nightclubs and casinos where prostitution, drugs, and crooked gambling flourish unchecked. An older couple who thought they were retiring to a quiet seaside town got too deeply involved with local politics and the Dixie Mafia and were murdered. The investigation would've sunk beneath the muddy swirl of graft and business as usual but for the tenacious efforts of the victims' daughter. Despite death threats and indifferent law enforcement officials, she hired a private detective and swore to do whatever it took to bring her parents' killers to trial. Horror/suspense writer Peter Straubfinds the story reminiscent of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen: "Like those writers, Edward Humes can make the wild, amoral, scheming sleazoids he parades before our eyes all but sing and dance on the page. Here is America, fat and happy, both hands crammed into the till." Mississippi Mud was a 1995 finalist for the Edgar Award in Fact Crime.
From Publishers Weekly
Vincent Sherry, a circuit court judge in Biloxi, and his wife, Margaret, city council member and a reform mayoral candidate, were fatally shot at their Mississippi home in 1987. The eldest of their four children, Lynne Sposito, hired a private detective. Biloxi had a history as a sin city; some of its cops were corrupt, while others were barely competent, and the police tried to implicate the Sherrys' adopted son in the murder. The individual perceived by Sposito to be most likely to suffer from a reform administration was Mike Gillich, who owned a number of strip joints in Biloxi; he was connected to con man Kirksey Nix, who was subsequently convicted of murder in Louisiana and given a life sentence. Nix's longtime lawyer was Vincent Sherry's law partner, Pete Halat, who may or may not have profited from Nix's many scams. Four years after the slayings, Gillich, Nix and two others were found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Sherrys' murder and given long prison terms. But questions remain, notes the author: "No one has been charged with the actual killings." Humes ( Buried Secrets ) has written an exceptionally fine depiction of a multifaceted case. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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