Thursday, March 11, 2021

No. 412: A Recent John Grisham Page Turner

John Grisham is one of my favorite authors. He has written about three dozen novels, one work of nonfiction, a collection of short stories, and several books for young readers. I have read many of his books.

A Time for Mercy
A few months ago I read A Time for Mercy, which at the time was a recently published page turner. It was set a few years after the events described in his fascinating first book, A Time to Kill, and includes many of the same characters. The book centers around the subject of domestic violence. A teenage boy murders the man in whose house the boy, the boy's mother, and the boy's sister live. The boy is charged with murder and is defended by the same attorney who was one of the central characters in Grisham's first book. The recent book, like all of Grisham's books, is almost impossible to put down, and has some surprising developments at the end. I strongly recommend the book.

My Earlier Reviews of Grisham Books
Grisham's sixth book, a 1995 novel entitled The Rainmaker, centers around a large fictional health insurance company whose refusal to honor a claim leads to the death of the claimant. The insurance angle prompted me to write a short review of the book in the August 1995 issue of my monthly newsletter, The Insurance Forum.

My second review of a Grisham book described one of the short stories, entitled "Michael's Room," in a 2008 book entitled Ford County. The story is about an infant who suffers severe brain damage as the result of a botched delivery, and about the family's negligence lawsuit against the physician. My review of "Michael's Room" was in the May 2010 issue of the Forum.

My third review of a Grisham book was about a 2010 book entitled Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer. The book was the first of several books for young readers. The central character is a 13-year-old whose parents are lawyers and who seems headed for a legal career himself. Here though, our hero gets involved in a murder trial in his home town. My review of the book was in the December 2010 issue of the Forum.

My first three reviews of Grisham books, described briefly above, are here. My fourth review of a Grisham book, a 2013 book entitled Sycamore Row, appeared in No. 7 (November 13, 2013), one of my first blog posts.

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