If William Shakespeare lived today in our Deep South, he would probably write similarly to Greg Iles in “The Bone Tree.” In this second novel of a promised trilogy that started with last year’s “Natchez Burning,” Mr. Iles tells a complex story with a large cast of characters. Highly dramatic, expertly written and compulsively readable, the novel has warring families, conflicts between comrades and internal struggles within individuals.

While the book has lots of action, from Jet Ranger helicopters to jonboats with trolling motors, also included are numerous riveting scenes of intensely emotional dialogue. There are murders, too, but to describe “The Bone Tree” as just a murder mystery is like calling One World Trade Center just a building.

Similar to a great Shakespearean tragedy, at its deepest layer Mr. Iles revisits the death of America’s equivalent to a king: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Set in 2005, a tale this vast must have a center, and Penn Cage is the book’s designated driver. At the start, he’s a winning mix of boyishness and sophistication among Mississippi’s rednecks and rural blacks.

Penn is a novelist, former prosecutor and current mayor of Natchez, but none of these distinctions matter here, because his main occupation in “The Bone Tree” is to find his father.

In “Natchez Burning,” Dr. Tom Cage, 73, was accused of murdering his former nurse, Viola Turner. In this story he is on the run. While Penn tries to determine his father’s whereabouts, the reader knows, since Mr. Iles allows us to follow Tom’s harrowing adventures, which are assisted by a resourceful old buddy from the Texas Rangers.

Meanwhile, another plot thread from “Natchez Burning” is central to “The Bone Tree.” In the first novel, Double Eagles member Glenn Morehouse made a deathbed confession to journalist Henry Sexton. The Double Eagles, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan that is even more virulent, was started by Frank Knox in the 1960s and is responsible for numerous civil rights crimes.

In the latest novel, FBI agent John Kaiser uses the Patriot Act to designate the Double Eagles as a domestic terror organization. Engaging in hate crimes also puts them under FBI jurisdiction. But proof is scarce, so catching them is still a long way off, especially since the current boss of the Double Eagles, Forrest Knox, is lieutenant colonel of the Louisiana state police.

One of the most evil yet charismatic villains since Shakespeare’s Iago, Forrest is a “purebred wolf who will smell you coming from five miles away.” His uncle, Snake, is described as “the last of the crazy racist crackers,” and his cousin, Billy, runs the statewide meth operation. While this deviant group was introduced in “Natchez Burning,” in “The Bone Tree” Mr. Iles traces their roots back to Elam Knox, a preacher whose Bible was bound in human skin.

The Knox family owns the Valhalla Exotic Hunting Reserve in the Louisiana swamp. According to information discovered by Caitlin Masters, publisher of the Natchez Examiner, it’s also near the site of the bone tree, the long-rumored dumping ground of Double Eagle corpses.

As written by Mr. Iles, Caitlin is both exciting and flawed. She’s engaged to Penn, but her real passion is for an exclusive story. She wants justice, but she also longs to win prizes and do the talk show circuit. Her quest to find the bone tree is some of Mr. Iles’ most atmospheric writing. The huge, hollow, centuries-old cypress sits in black water infested with venomous snakes and alligators with their babies clinging to their backs.

This is just the barest outline of all that happens in “The Bone Tree.” Fidel Castro makes a brief appearance, saying: “Sometime after I die, Cuba will revert to capitalism and the Walt Disney company will have Mickey Mouse running the damned casinos.”

According to Mr. Iles’ research, Cuban casinos could have been a root cause of Kennedy’s killing. As Penn says: “At the farthest reach of this tangled web may lie the assassination of a president.” Mr. Iles’ fans will be happy to know there is one more book to sort it all out.

Margie Romero is communications manager at the Pittsburgh Public Theater.

First Published: June 7, 2015, 4:00 a.m.