★✩✩✩✩ Having read and enjoyed several dozens of John Grisham’s novels, I made myself finish this one, but it took me four or five months.
Every time I closed the book I would see the testimonials printed on the cover “no one does it better than Grisham”, and “just when you think you know Grisham he surprises you.” Well, the former is true only up to this book, and the latter is true particularly in light of this book.
It takes ploughing through 400 pages (out of 550) for the book to begin to start. But it never really takes off, and seems even rushed at the end. Such a disappointment.
The book was boring, shallow, and while the writing isn’t bad, it is too verbose and very tedious. The plot is weak and stretched ultra thin; in this form it could and should have been a novella.
It is astounding that over the course of so many pages, and despite a rather small group of characters, we readers get to know hardly any of them.
The book is touted as “The sequel to A TIME TO KILL” which was such a fine novel that I hope that anyone who hasn’t read it isn’t put off by this one. Commonalities between the two are the main litigator and his family and a couple people who work with him, and a few irrelevant references to the other story. This novel attempts to shine by association but fails.