Northsider Mack Cameron was eager to give me a copy of his first book, The Swamp at Devil’s Bluff. He walked me out to his car, opened the trunk and plopped a copy into my hands. Then he started telling me about the screenplay he was working on. “It would make a great movie,” he told me.

I know Mack from way back. He is most famous for being one of the best tennis players ever to come out of Mississippi. While at Mississippi State his team won the SEC with him playing number one singles. Mack’s a lawyer and has had a long career working for various intelligence operations of the government.

What is it about Mississippi that makes so many of us want to write? It must be in the water. Surely, the state with the highest illiteracy rate must also have the highest number of writers per capita of any other state. Explain that.

Anyway, I was a bit trepidacious about the book. Since Mack is a friend, I had to read it, but I feared his first attempt at a novel would be rather tedious slogging. I set it off to the side of my bed where a couple of other dozen half-finished books reside. I am a picky reader.

My late-night reading time is the most relaxing part of my day. Everybody is asleep. I have a nice Fresca, OJ and tonic concoction on ice. I read for at least an hour or two until I get groggy, then I’m out by the time my head hits the pillow.

That night, I was looking forward to starting John Grisham’s The Appeal. Having experienced the tort wars in Mississippi first-hand, I figured it would be very interesting from my personal perspective.

It didn’t take long for the book to turn me off. Everything was a cliche, a stereotype. The evil insurance company. The crusading lawyer. Blah, blah, blah. After a couple of chapters, I tossed the Grisham book into the pile and looked over for something else. I grabbed The Swamp at Devil’s Bluff.

The book is set in the Roaring Twenties in Bay St. Louis. The hero/villain is a charming bootlegger sent by Al Capone to set up a Southern operation. Lots of voodoo, New Orleans, Southern history.

By the last few chapters, I was reading so fast I was skipping whole sentences just to get to the end.

What a great read! It’s the most entertaining book I’ve read in years. Great plot. Great descriptions. Great dialogue. Just totally excellent. It’s amazing that someone can just sit down and write such a terrific book. And Mack is right. It would make a perfect movie. Good luck to him on that.

Northsider John Allison is commissioner of the Department of Banking and Consumer Finance for the state of Mississippi. He oversees a staff of 50 which is funded by bank fees. He recently gave an excellent talk at the Rotary Club of North Jackson.

“We’re seeing a total reversal of state regulation of banking,” Allison said. “They’re talking about total nationalization of regulation, so it’s an interesting time.

“This would be detrimental to the consumer because it would eliminate a lot of leeway we have in dealing with different institutions.”

Allison worked his way up through the ranks at the department of banking. One can imagine he must possess considerable political skills to navigate through all the competing pressures of the legislature, the executive branch and the banks he regulates.

Like so many aspects of our government, banking regulation is a hodgepodge of state and federal laws and regulations.

There are 20 national banks that fall under federal regulations, but the other 75 financial institutions are under state control. In terms of assets, state banks have $41 billion compared to $17 billion for the national banks in our state. Mississippi is still dominated by local and state banks.

Moreover, the state banks are growing. Over the last two years 15 new state banks were chartered. They’re doing extremely well, says Allison. There are 17,000 bank employees in the state.

Compare this to the overall national scene in which four banks control 40 percent of all bank assets.

Allison was critical of federal banking policy which is allowing a double standard. “Unfortunately, there is a mentality in Washington of too big to fail and too small to save.”

Allison was cautiously optimistic about the future. “We’re certainly not out of the woods yet, but we do see a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not a train.”

“Mississippi is doing pretty good,” compared to other states. Banks are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with one being the best a bank can be. “We have no 4s and 5s. We have a few more 3s than normal, but not many more.” Mississippi beats national averages on bank stability ratings.

“We don’t really have any problems while folks from other states say it’s pretty traumatic.”

Allison also regulates fringe banking companies like payday lenders and title companies. He defended these businesses. “You have to compare the interest they charge to overdraft charges of normal banks. If fringe banking was eliminated, we would go back to unsupervised loan sharks.”