Beneath a Ruthless Sun

A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found

By: Gilbert King

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post

"Compelling, insightful, and important, Beneath a Ruthless Sun exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation. A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and still largely ignored, an engaging and essential read." (Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy)

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller Devil in the Grove, the gripping true story of a small town with a big secret.

In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away. She claims a "husky Negro" did it, and the sheriff, the infamous racist Willis McCall, does not hesitate to round up a herd of suspects. But within days, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle, mentally impaired white 19-year-old. Soon Jesse is railroaded up to the state hospital for the insane and locked away without trial. But crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese cannot stop fretting over the case and its baffling outcome. Who was protecting whom, or what? She pursues the story for years, chasing down leads, hitting dead ends, winning unlikely allies. Bit by bit, the unspeakable truths behind a conspiracy that shocked a community into silence begin to surface.

Beneath a Ruthless Sun tells a powerful, pause-resisting story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.

©2018 Gilbert King (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Riveting...King recounts this perplexing story with compassion and a vibrant sense of time and place…[a] sobering but expertly told saga.” (Washington Post)

“Chilling...Truth oftentimes beggars belief, and the 'true' in 'true crime' can be a promise that betrays as much as it entices. Not so with Gilbert King's scorching, compelling, and - unfortunately - still entirely relevant new work.”(NPR)

“A gripping tale of entrenched racism and complicity… King's reporting defies cliché with depth and specificity. He holds to verifiable facts and knows how to let a story and characters evolve… [Beneath a Ruthless Sun] haunts as an uncurtained stare into history.” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

The story itself. I live in the 5th circuit.

I knew most of the officials. I practiced law in the areas for 30 plus years years.

As In The Beginning, So GoethThe Entire Book

And by that I mean: We start the book off with Jesse, our victim/hero, and get a sense of whom he is, his childlike ways and mental capacities. Then we digress like crazy to the weather, citrus princes, Blanche's childhood, the love who was shot down during the war, some of the culture of the area and Florida in general. Really, it takes quite a while before we get back to the main story.
That's how all of Beneath a Ruthless Sun is. Main story, digressions to various civil rights members, civil rights activities, the sheriff department's ruthless ways, atrocities committed against the civil rights movement, a little about Mabel, some about Jesse and his mother Pearl, more atrocities, and on it goes.
Fortunately, King is such a good writer, writes in such an emotionally evocative manner, that I was engaged throughout, barely noticing I'd gone down a rabbit hole with him until he brought the story back to the main people, the main point. (Also, I've never read/listened to Devil in the Grove so I can't tell just how much is lifted from it per se, but that crime, those victims are covered in GREAT detail here too).
Farr does a decent job with the narration--doesn't strive overmuch to make verbal/vocal distinctions between genders, so no growly men, no high-pitched women to distract from it all.
All in all, I spent 14+ hours interested in the subject matter and really, really interested in the people. It is shocking; it's outrageous, and in the end, I wonder if justice truly was served and if lost years were made up for.

State Inflicted Domestic Terrorism

A microcosm of the conditions and circumstances people of color have endured in America for 400+ years and are continuing to endure. I find it invaluable to read these well documented and indisputable historical accounts of moral depravity, otherwise it would be difficult for me to imagine if not impossible to imagine the moral abyss by which a diseased society can exist.

https://www.combatingpoliticalcivicilliteracy.com/

Excellent!

Excellent read for everyone. Well documented story that exposes the horrible corruption, racism and bullying in the south during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. The story really makes you stop and think about the difference between right and wrong and injustice.

Disturbing well done account

Highly recommend. We can see something akin to this potentially happening again today in our current Political environment

Great Listen

What a terrifying experience to have lived through in Florida. It is hard to believe that in just a few counties over anyone other that white men had an easy time in life. This story saddened me as I believe that we have changed for the positive and don’t understand why Floridians ever behaved this way in the first place. We are only 2 generations removed from this story and must not go back.

Disturbing!

As someone who grew up in Florida during this time, this was an eye-opening, disturbing, true account of the injustices perpetrated on African Americans in Florida. It also told of the tireless and valiant fight by a few to right these wrongs and find justice.

Priceless, Not to be Missed

Wow - my mind is blown after finishing this book. Totally captured and held my attention and now I’m just spinning at it all. Super well-narrated, excellently written, great book.

Excellent story to make you mad

This book follows much of the same story line as “Devil in the grove”. The corruption that was taking place under Willis McCall in lake county Florida during his tenure as sheriff is probably unparalleled anywhere else in the country. As I have listened to both books I have felt that there is a special place in hell for people of such wicked devices, how someone could be so full of hate and yet in such a powerful position is a very scary prospect. This is a very interesting and equally sad story of the miscarriage of justice because people in supposed power refused to allow the truth to be known.

Deeper than race

Powerful and insightful story of injustice in Jim Crow era Florida. What sets this story apart from most is that, while it is very much a story of institutional racism, it also lays bare the twin of that particular evil, the disposability of so-called "waste people". I think it exposes a layer of complexity to life, whether it's 1957, 1972 or 2020, which is rather blithely categorized as simply racism. The roots are much deeper than race, it's just that skin color is the most obvious, identifiable sign of otherness, and thereby able to be dismissed as lesser, and undeserving of human rights or consideration. But as the author demonstrates, it doesn't stop there, and we all would be remiss to think it does. Black, white, and all ethnicities for that matter, can learn from this story. It's in us all, every one.