The Racketeer

I chose a John Grisham book to help me get back into the habit of reading as, in the past, I've found his books to be quick page-turners- hard to put down. This, his latest book, had good reviews and the premise seemed intriguing.

Alas, I was largely dissppointed by the book. The plot centers around a lawyer in jail for racketeering who supposedly knows the identity of the murderer of a federal judge. Right off the bat several elements of the plot seemed largely implausible including the claim that the protagonist was more or less innocent of the charges that landed him in jail. More annoying was Grisham's use of the first-person narrative interjected with occassional passages of third-person. In another setting, this might have worked, but here it was clumsy.

The storytelling lacked any real excitement - at no time did I ever feel the characters to be in peril. Instead it was the slow, and at times laborius, detailing of a convulted scheme. There are countless passages that read like a travel itinerary as though Grisham was merely trying to fill pages.

Two final quibbles: Grisham almost brags in the Author's Note at the end that he did no research for this book. It is painfully obvious in his whole attitude towards the story. I suppose when you are successful as Grisham, you can phone one in from time to time as he does here.

My other quibble is that Grisham, who is white, chose to make the protagonist African-American, then write in first person. Ultimately it doesn't ring true leaving us with a character who is neither likable or memorable.

Some have called this book a “return to form” for Grisham, but I know he has written much better.