Legendary Mississippi author Greg Iles died Friday after a long battle with cancer.

The 65-year-old best-selling author, who wrote 17 novels, lost his battle to multiple myeloma, a cancer in which white blood cells begin to grow abnormally in the bone marrow. He had been battling the disease since 1996.

“He gave us great books, and he stayed in Mississippi,” said Lemuria Bookstore owner John Evans. “He wrote about a lot of the wrongs to make people all over the country realize that some people were trying to do right.”

Iles became a supporter of Lemuria long before he ever began writing books, coming first with his father and later on his own, Evans said.

Once on Ernest Hemingway’s birthday, Lemuria had a keg of beer and threw a party.

When Iles arrived, he confessed that he felt “tot

See Full Page