A Hurricane and Murder in CAMINO WINDS

John Grisham returns to the setting of his previous crime novel, Camino Island, in an entertaining new mystery, Camino Winds.

The main character from the first book is back again--- Bruce Cable, the owner of Bay Books, a popular literary hangout on the resort island off the Florida coast. Bruce is enjoying the pleasant tropical life he leads amidst a circle of local writers, when the sudden forecast of a dangerous hurricane headed for the island changes everything.

Panic ensues as the island undergoes emergency evacuation. Bruce Cable is one of a handful of locals who stay behind to ride out the storm. The arrival of Hurricane Leo is quite exciting as the savage winds smash across Camino Island.

Cable survives the storm, with heavy damage to his bookstore. As the locals emerge to survey the destruction, Bruce notices that one friend, writer Nelson Kerr, is missing. When they look for him, Kerr is found dead at his condo. But the storm didn't kill him. Someone else on the island did.

From there, the novel settles into a search for who killed Kerr, and why. Clues point to a new crime novel that Kerr had just finished about criminal abuse at a large chain of nursing homes. But the novel may have been an expose of crimes happening at a real company, and a book that someone powerful didn't want to see published.

Camino Winds is a pleasantly readable mystery that moves along at a leisurely pace. For fans of the author, it's another satisfying entry to add to the John Grisham shelf. 

John Grisham Hits the Beach in CAMINO ISLAND

Summer is beach reading time and John Grisham offers some entertaining vacation fare with his new novel Camino Island. The story is set on an island off the Florida Atlantic coast, a popular tourist destination.

The novel opens with a daring heist of rare original F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from a vault at Princeton University. The manuscripts could be worth millions on the black market, if they can be secretly handled and sold. After the theft, the manuscripts have disappeared, hidden somewhere for the time being.

The insurer of the Fitzgerald works is on the hook for a gigantic payout if the stolen property isn't recovered. But they have a potential suspect in sight --- Bruce Cable, a local bookstore owner on Camino Island, who deals in rare book sales. What the insurer needs is someone undercover who can get close to Cable and look for info on the stolen manuscripts.

The insurer recruits Mercer Mann, a struggling novelist with a childhood connection to Camino Island. As Mercer returns to live again on the island, she joins the local literary circle and begins her tricky effort to learn the truth about suspected criminal dealer Bruce Cable. Is he really in possession of the stolen Fitzgerald works or not?

Camino Island is not a thriller, but instead a leisurely, rambling crime tale with a scenic locale, colorful characters, and amusing insight into the business world of book sellers and writers. John Grisham fans should enjoy their vacation reading with this one.

Corrupt Judge at Center of John Grisham's THE WHISTLER

The Whistler by John Grisham is a new legal novel that begins with the problem of a corrupt judge and leads to the uncovering of a widespread, entrenched crime syndicate.

The main character is Lacy Stolz, an investigator for the board that oversees Florida judges. When a complaint of judicial misconduct is filed against a female Circuit Court judge, Lacy and her partner, Hugo Hatch, are at first skeptical. The complaint filer is a secretive whistleblower who claims to have a mole contact close to the judge.

As Lacy digs into the case, it looks like the judge is taking payoff money connected to a casino on Indian tribal land. But the corruption spreads much wider than that, and dangerous people involved are willing to use violence to protect themselves.

A cold blooded trap is set for Lacy and Hugo with tragic consequences. The whistleblower himself suddenly disappears. As Lacy's office realizes what they are up against, they are forced to go to the FBI for help.

The Whistler is an entertaining read that is slowed sometimes by in-depth background material. The novel continues John Grisham's exploration of the darker corners of the American legal system.

ROGUE LAWYER an Enjoyable Read from John Grisham

Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham features maverick street lawyer Sebastian Rudd, who takes on the most toxic criminal defendants that other attorneys shy away from. Rudd pays a price for that, needing a bodyguard and riding around in a bulletproof van because of the many threats made against him.

The novel follows Rudd as he defends a series of controversial clients. An accused child murderer. A cage fighter who beats a referee to death. A homeowner who shoots back at a SWAT team that mistakenly raids the wrong house.

The events are narrated in the first person by Rudd. His cynical commentary about the dirty little truths of the criminal justice system is both entertaining and troubling. But Rudd knows all the dirty inside tricks himself and he is only too willing to use them to win his cases.

Rogue Lawyer is a fast paced read with an admittedly flawed, but unapologetic main character. The novel is one of John Grisham's wittiest and most enjoyable in his long writing career.

John Grisham Deals With Race in SYCAMORE ROW

Sycamore Row by John Grisham is the author's only novel to deal largely with race relations in the South since his first published work, A Time To Kill.

That early novel recounted the racially-charged trial of a black man who killed two white men after they had raped his daughter. The story was tense with racial prejudice, a cross burning, and a murder plot by violent Klansmen.

The defense lawyer in A Time To Kill, Jake Brigance, returns in Sycamore Row. But this time he's trying to execute the last will of a rich white man who inexplicably left his fortune to his black female housekeeper.

The black-white conflict in this case is now over money, not murder, which represents progress of a sort in the New South. But as the civil court trial unfolds, new revelations show that the ugly,violent secrets of the Old South can still come back to haunt the present.

As William Faulkner once wrote: "The past is never really dead. It's not even past."

Sycamore Row is set in the town of Clanton in Ford County, Mississippi, the site of much of Grisham's fiction. The novel brings back colorful local characters from past Grisham works, in particular The Summons, The Last Juror, and Ford County.

In Sycamore Row, the author continues his usual sardonic depiction of the seamier antics of the legal profession, as well as his wry commentary on the culture of his native South.

Sycamore Row is one of the best novels John Grisham has written during his long career.