As a habit, I always try to pick out the best things in anything & everything as I believe more in constructive thinking (or reviewing). But certain things are unexcusable so please excuse me....
Many many years ago, when I first picked up my first John Grisham novel, just for a chance & out of curiosity & boredom, I never guessed that I would always be looking forward to reading his novels. One after the other, I bought, borrowed & read most of his novels. So, when I went book hunting a few weeks ago, I was delighted to find his latest novel, The Last Juror in the store. Immediately, I bought it & rushed home excitedly & immediately plopped down on my bed to engross myself in another exciting courtroom thriller. I think that is the maximum excitement I got out from this book.
It starts off well enough as the story goes back to 1970 in a small town Clanton in Mississippi. It is a town still bogged down by racial discriminations & the blacks are looked down at. In that town, lives our author Willie Traynor who works for the only newspaper The Ford County Times. As the owner plans to sell it off, this young 23 yrs old reporter buys it with the help of his rich grandmother. Being an outsider, he is looked at with suspicion & distrust. There is not much to report in a small town & it is more like a big orbituary column where he dares to writes orbituaries for the untouchable blacks. As a result, the subscription dwindles.
One night, a tragic incident takes place- a beautiful, young widow is brutally raped & murdered. Before she dies, she manages to tell the name of her assailant- Danny Padgitt of the rich, secretive Padgitt family with whom no one wants to get entangled. But our young reporter prints the entire story in his newspaper & the culprit is brought to trial. Inspite of all the manipulation attempts by the Padgitt family, the juror find him ’guilty’ & sentence him to life imprisonment. To the horror of the entire audience, Danny Padgitt swears revenge on the jury....
A few twists of situations & money burning leads to Danny Padgitt being released on parole after 10 yrs of lenient imprisonment. & then the mysterious murders begin with everyone suspecting the rather obvious choice. Another round of courtroom session where the mystery unravels itself....
This entire story, the meaningful part of it, consists of just a third of the book. The rest? A long, lazy, rather boring description of the town, the people, the conversion of the reporter from a long haired hippy kind of person to a ladies’ kind of gentleman, from an almost penniless thrift to the owner of a posh mansion which takes 9 years for renovation(?), a non-church-goer to a reporter who visits all the churches in town & writes about them. (Sounds boring?) If that sounds boring, then let me warn U that a third of the book is filled with the reporter’s relationship with the Ruffin family, their weekly lunches & descriptions of food, food & more food. I almost had a stomach ache reading it. (Not that I don’t enjoy a well-cooked meal).
Truely, this time I’m really disappointed by John Grisham & this novel is certainly very un-Grishamish to me. He seems to lose track of the story midway & too often as well. Parts of it seems as if its written by a food fanatic, or should I say Mrs. Grisham?! At the near-end of the novel, our reporter loses interest in his hard-earned newspaper & sells it off. Is it a sign that John Grisham too has lost his interest at least in writing this particular novel? If I hadn’t read his earlier novels, I’d definitely have sworn off Grisham. All his other novels which I have read are filled with suspense, thrills & chills & packed with a lot of court room action. He has always given a fantastic insight of the knowledge & practise he had as a lawyer for 10 yrs.
If U are a John Grisham fan, then I do not recommend this book at all, as it will leave U with an insipid taste. & if U have never tried John Grisham, then pretty please do not start off with this novel. If U still decide to read it, don’t say I didn’t warn U. I feel sorry to say this is his first book which I did not find un-putdownable & it took me almost a week to finish what I would have in a single day. Need I say more????! Well, at least I hope regarding this book, I won’t be The Last Juror....