Shame

Rereading Chiefs was not what I expected.  I read it when I was thirteen, shortly after the mini-series came out because I loved the movie.  After our county got OneClick Audio, which I LOVE, Chiefs was the first book I downloaded.
It's been a long time since I read an amazing Stuart Woods book.  Even though I still love him and will read everything I can about Stone, as I've admitted in the past, Woods just doesn't write real books anymore.  Chiefs surprised me because it is truly a classic.  Wonderfully drawn characters, historical content that is truly interesting, suspense like you wouldn't believe and the dialogue is excellent.  This is a fantastic book.
But it was a painful book.
The book spans more than forty years and tells a series of murders that spans that long, as well.  It is told in three books:  Will Henry Lee, Sonny Butts and Tucker Watts, three chiefs of the Delano, Georgia police department.  During those forty years someone in Delano is kidnapping, molesting and murdering young boys.  When the first two chiefs get close to exposing the murderer, they are killed.  The Sonny Butts book and the Tucker Watts books are the hardest to read.  I had to skip around and go backward because of the horrors that Sonny Butts put African American through and the racism present in general.  Tucker Watts' story is the same.  This is a shameful part of American history when it comes to the treatment of African Americans.  Personally I think present day is also a shameful part of American history as well.  We are not much better off.
Fantastic but very disturbing book.