Pale Horse Coming

Pale Horse Coming is a novel by Stephen Hunter published in 2001. It is his second book in the series featuring the character of Earl Swagger. Plot summary In 1951, Arkansas attorney Sam Vincent is hired by Davis Trugood, a Chicago lawyer, to verify the death of the Trugood's client's manservant in Thebes, Mississippi, a desolate shantytown cut off from civilization and surrounded by swampland and seemingly impenetrable piney woods. While in Thebes, Sam is roughly arrested for challenging the legality and authority of Thebes' law enforcement and is imprisoned by the local Sheriff. Earl Swagger travels to Thebes with the intent of rescuing Sam after he fails to hear from his friend for several weeks. He succeeds in securing Sam's freedom but is himself captured and incarcerated as the only white man among the inmates of the nearby Thebes penitentiary, a former timber plantation and current forced labor camp for negro convicts and run by ruthless and inhumane white supremacists. The mysterious and unnamed warden instructs his jailers to torture Earl, suspecting him to be a federal investigator interested in the secret workings of the camp. The other inmates apply their acquired hatred of white men to Earl, who must defend himself not only from the guards, but also from his fellow prisoners.