Greg Iles, author of ‘Natchez Burning’ trilogy, dies at 65 after decades-long battle with cancer

Success·ObituaryGreg Iles, author of ‘Natchez Burning’ trilogy, dies at 65 after decades-long battle with cancerBy The Associated PressBy The Associated Press New York Times best-selling author Greg Iles of Natchez, Miss., states the need for a change of the Mississippi state flag during the seventh annual Statehood Day celebration Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015, in Jackson, Miss

Initially diagnosed with the incurable condition in 1996, he kept his illness private until completing his final novel, “Southern Man,” which was published in 2024

Many of his stories are set in Mississippi, including the “Natchez Burning” trilogy, historical fiction suspense novels exploring race and class in the 1960s Jim Crow South

Conaway described Iles as “warm, funny, fearless, and completely sui generis.” “To be on the other end of the phone as he talked through character and plot, blem-solving on the fly, was to be witness to genius at work, plain and simple,” he wrote on Saturday. “As a writer he fused story-craft, bone-deep humanity, and a growing sense of moral and political responsibility with the ferocious precisions of a whirling dervish or a master watchmaker.” In March 2011, Iles suffered a ruptured aorta and a partial leg amputation and spent eight days in a medically induced coma after another driver struck his car on Highway 61 near Natchez

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