After reading The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin (see the review in the left column), I decided to go light on some recently published John Grisham books, first Camino Ghosts, followed by The Boys from Biloxi. I have read Grisham before and am comfortable with his storytelling, recognizing he will include courtroom drama and lessons in lawyering. The only one I read that did not have this ingredient was A Painted House, which became my favorite of the Grisham books I have read. Both recently read books had those elements but were different stories with different legal issues.
Camino Ghosts had a speculative fiction component that I do not remember from previous Grisham stories, but then I have not read them all. Lord knows the man is a prolific writer. Anyway, I enjoy reading and writing speculative fiction so I was at home with the concept that a voodoo priestess put a curse on an island that was home to runaway slaves that killed any white people who set foot on its sand.
A story that evokes an emotion in me at the end always gets kudos for craftsmanship, and that is what happened in the final pages of The Boys from Biloxi. Two errors, unfortunately, marred the novel. First, a character who blew his brains out on a dock on a lake appears alive and incarcerated in the next chapter. Second, people attending a meeting miles away from Biloxi can hear the hammer and saws of repair work down the hall in an office in Biloxi.
I was so confused by this that I checked out a book review online to confirm that the reviewer saw what I did. She did. She also indicated that Grisham did not follow the rule so heavily pounded into beginning writers about “Show, don’t tell.” I have always had issues with that expression. To me, television, video, and movies show. Storytellers tell. I was glad to see that someone as successful in the field of novel writing as John Grisham tells his story.
