Category: John Grisham

Genre: Legal Thriller (Very interesting mass tort thriller) – Oscar Finley and Wally Figg run a “boutique” law firm in Chicago.  They are glorified ambulance chasers, but, have been happily (or not so happily) eeking out a living for many years.  Oscar is in his early 60’s and dreams of divorce and retirement.  Wally is…

Genre: Legal Thriller Rating: 3.5 WaterTowers “Fetching Raymond” is  short story from “Ford County Stories” by John Grisham Leon Graney borrows Mr. McBride’s upholstery business van for a road trip with his mother, Inez,  and brother, Butch. They are going to visit their other brother, eternal optimist, Raymond, at Parchman prison. As the road trip unfolds we…

“Blood Drive” is  short story from “Ford County Stories” by John Grisham Genre: Cozy (?) Rating: 4 WaterTowers (Three rednecks driving to Memphis to save a friend) Buy it! Bailey was working in Memphis when he got hurt and sent to the hospital.  The details of his condition were varied, but, the town-folk of Box…

Genre: Thriller Rating: 4 Watertowers Donte Drumm has less than a week to live. He is at the end of a 10 year stay on death row in Texas for killing Sloan (Texas) High School Cheerleader Nicole Yarber.  Her body was never found, and the evidence during the trial was circumstantial at best.  Donte’s lawyer,…

Book Review Genre: Thriller Rating:  3.5 Watertowers Kyle McAvoy is looking forward to graduation from Yale Law School. He is the editor of the prestigious “Yale Law Review” and has his pick of lucrative jobs as a law associate.  But his heart is set on helping the poor in Virginia for a few years. His plans…

  Genre: Legal Thriller Rating: 4 Water Towers After years of litigation, the small, nearly bankrupt, law firm of Payton & Payton (Mary Grace and Wes) has just won a $41 million lawsuit against New York based Krane Chemical. This is proof that the illegal dumping of chemicals at the Krane plant in Bowmore, Mississippi…

Genre: Fiction Buy it! Rating: 5 Water Towers Every now and then John Grisham writes a book that is “off-genre”. “Playing for Pizza” is one such novel, and it is a gem. Other off-genre (meaning not a Legal Thriller) John Grisham fiction books are: “A Painted House”, “Skipping Christmas”, and “Bleachers”. All of them are…

Genre: Non-Fiction Rating: 5 Water Towers I went way out of my normal genre to read John Grisham’s (who also for the first time wrote a non-fiction book)The Innocent Man. If you read only one book this year, read this one. It is a superb story detailing the life of Ron Williamson. If you think…