Tom and Penn Cage, as well as Atticus Finch, are all professional southern men considered to be leaders in their communities. For me that is where the similarities end in this trilogy. At the outset of book one, I felt sympathetic for both Tom and Penn Cage. However, as I continued reading in books two and three, that sympathy began to quickly diminish, and by the end of book three, it is nearly gone altogether. Although Tom and Penn are both professionals, one a lawyer, an author, and now a city servant, and the other a doctor, I found them both morally and physically weak and seeming to hold on to values that each often had a difficult time espousing or following Yes, I know Dr. Cage was a big help in the community, providing medical attention and service to the black community at a time when it was unacceptable to do so (hard as that is to believe). But what he did on his way to fulfilling that service is not sensible or excusable - and what he did to his family in the process is almost even worse. And what struck me as even more unbelievable and reprehensible is that his son followed his very example. And to add insult to injury, where was Penn's focus on the community he was to be leading while all this was going on? I know these two men are to be considered the good forces in these books, but their characters are very flawed and in no way measure up to that of Atticus Finch. Perhaps that is why Lee's Mockingbird is considered one of the finest pieces of fiction every written. In Atticus Finch she creates the true hero, a community leader acting for the people, not himself, and while, as a professional, he must be among the wealthier members of the community, he remains humble in every way. In addition, he is an outstanding father and family figure. Lee created a seemingly perfect man and she did so while making him perfectly believable and lovable as well. Iles does not come close with either Penn or Tom - and perhaps he did not intend to. But with the forces of good and evil at the heart of this trilogy, I expected to the protagonists to be as positive and the antagonists were evil. That is simply not the case. I found myself rooting for Walt Garrity and Quentin Avery before either of the Cages, and in fact, I wondered why they were so committed to him.