There are three popular authors whose novels I never miss.
Archer, Forsyth and Grisham.
Well to be truthful I have missed only one book of each.
Grisham made an exciting debut in the summer of 92 with his first
novel ’A Time to Kill’
Many moons, many genres and many film adaptations later he comes up with something called ’The Last Juror’ which at the most is a mixture of all the genres he has moved through in his previous books.
Unfortunately for me this is his worst book second only to another turkey written
by him some moons ago called ’The Street Lawyer’
Willie Traynor, a dropout of journalism college is working as a reporter in
a small newspaper, ’The Ford County Times’. The setting is again Clanton, Mississipi
where his first novel was based.
When the paper goes bankrupt, Willie borrows $50K from his wealthy grandma and
buys the paper. While getting the paper back on his feet, there occurs a murder
of a widow, witnessed by her children. The widow manges to speak out the killers name, Danny Padgitt, before she dies in the arms of her neighbour.
The killer belongs to the notorious Padgitt family who are into all sort of criminal
activities and the local populace is full of Padgitt stories.
Danny is however arrested and Wille with the aid of the paper manages to publicise the murder so much that there is no verdict except for the guilty verdict.
As Danny leaves the witness stand he threatens the jurors that if they convict him
he will ’get’ each one of them.
Danny is sent to prison for life which, Willie finds out later, in Missisipi means
10 years or so. Danny manages to bribe his way out in 9 years and when he arrives back in Clanton, the jurors start getting bumped off.
So much for the main plot. The years between the conviction and parole are broken into sub-plots by Grisham most of which get on your nerves after a while.
Some of it focusses on segregated south and the move towards desegregation.
But most of it revolves around the Ruffins, an African American family, who Willie happens to befriend. The matriarch of the family, Callie Ruffin, is also one of the jurors on the Padgitt jury.
Chapters and Chapters of this book are devoted to the Ruffins and their cooking feasts and the innumerable Ruffin children etc etc. This damages the book to an extent or irrepairability. Also the description of the cookout make you feel that Grisham is probably a closet racist himself.
The quickly strung together finale is as exciting as a cup of cold tea.
Do not spend money on this book. If possible borrow from library or other suckers.
I got it from a library myself and will feast on the 20$ I saved.
By the way, the title of the book has absolutely no relation the story.
Is there a possibility of giving no stars on MS ? Please lets start this option for such reviews