Grisham is back with a new twist

11 Jun, 2017 - 00:06 0 Views
Grisham is back with a new twist

The Sunday Mail

Andrew Moyo Beyond the cover
JOHN Grisham has established himself as one of the finest, if not the best legal thriller writers on the planet.From the late ’80s, the bestselling author has churned out masterpiece after masterpiece, creating interesting storylines that give his readers visuals of the jungle that is the legal world.

Having thrived within the courtroom setup with hundreds of millions of copies sold worldwide, it came as a surprise when he decided to deviate from the norm in his latest novel “Camino Island”, which is a heist thriller.

Every time Grisham releases a novel, I am always looking forward to the legal battles and courtroom shenanigans that are characteristic of his pen, but not this time.

When there is talk of heists, the first personalities that come to mind are bank robbers, jewel thieves and art snatchers, but well, Grisham had other thoughts on this one with the plot revolving in his own turf, the literary world.

In the book, a gang of thieves stage a heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library, making away with a priceless loot, the original manuscripts of “The Great Gatsby” and other books written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The loot might be priceless, but the university has insured it for $25 million.

Bruce Cable, who owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida, makes his real money as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts.

When Cable becomes a suspect, Mercer Mann, a young novelist, is recruited to go undercover and infiltrate the book dealer’s circle of friends but as she learns too much, the mission becomes dangerous, rather exciting for readers.

From the first sentence, I already had a feeling that something dubious was about to go down and knowing how good this particular author is, well expectation shot to the roof.

“The imposter borrowed the name of Neville Manchin, an actual professor of American literature at Portland State and soon-to-be doctoral student at Stanford. In his letter, on perfectly forged college stationery, ‘Professor Manchin’ claimed to be a budding scholar of F. Scott Fitzgerald and was keen to see the great writer’s ‘manuscripts and papers’ during a forthcoming trip to the East Coast.”

Not to say that I like criminals, but when this character’s true identity is finally revealed later on in the chapter, I figured that he, along with his colleagues, were bound to ignite the fuse that would make the book explode.

“If someone asked, which he certainly didn’t expect, his story was that he was a grad student from Iowa. In real life his name was Mark and his occupation, if one could call it that, was professional thievery. High-dollar, world-class, elaborately planned smash-and-grab jobs that specialised in art and rare artefacts that could be sold back to the desperate victims for ransom.”

Grisham really knows how to keep a story moving, bringing in the twists when you least expect it and making sure that you stay glued to the pages. He is one writer who never disappoints and on this one he has managed to maintain that trait. This is a refreshing read as the writer came up with a completely different and unique angle for his story.

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