Book review: "Camino Island" by John Grisham

Tweet

Attorney turned best selling author John Grisham stumbled badly with his last published novel “The Rooster Bar” which was poorly written farfetched nonsense. Similar to Stephen King, Grisham is a prolific writer running out of steam with a penchant of injecting his liberal politics though not to the extreme of King. Published prior to “The Rooster Bar,” “Camino Island” (2017, Doubleday, 290 pages) is a rare non-legal novel from Grisham and pleasantly surprises being his best effort in years. F. Scott Fitzgerald is my favorite author so I was naturally hooked by the premise of five criminals pulling off the brilliant robbery of the five Fitzgerald handwritten manuscripts of his novels stored in the Princeton University vault. The initial chapters relate the theft but the bulk of the book does not dwell on the robbers. The manuscripts are worth millions on the black market and priceless to Princeton who desperately wants them returned. The FBI captures two of the thieves who maintain silence. The insurance company is on the hook for $25 million to Princeton and want to recover the manuscripts to avoid payout. They believe rare book dealer Bruce Cable is in possession of them. He owns a book store in Santa Rosa located on Camino Island, a Florida resort area. The author provides Bruce’s backstory which is quite interesting. In fact discussing the collecting of rare books and first editions is fascinating reading. Most of the book keeps the reader dangling as to whether or not Bruce is good or bad or somewhere in between. Bruce is by far the most interesting character in the novel. He is someone who values and treasures the feel of real books and writers and will go the extra mile to promote and help them. Mercer has written one poorly selling though critically well received novel and just been laid off from a teaching position. She is suffering writer’s block from the weight of student loan debt. The insurance company approaches with a deal of payment of the loans plus $100,000 to get close to Bruce and locate the manuscripts. She is the ideal candidate being young and attractive (Bruce is a womanizer), a writer (he loves writers) and has the local connection of having spent summers on Camino Island at her late Aunt Tessa’s beach cottage which she co-owns. Mercer reluctantly takes the deal. She is a floundering person with no real direction or even idea of what to write. Did Grisham intend making her unlikable because that is how she comes across. Mercer is an arrogant politically correct reader refuses to read this or read that. When Bruce asks if she has read Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner, her answer is “I don’t read old dead white men.” What an inane yet realistic response of her generation. Grisham accomplishes keeping the reader wondering how this will all sort out in the end and pondering Bruce. Plausible? Hard to imagine the manuscripts being stolen because today’s security technology must be more stringent than that in the book. Suspend belief as “Camino Island” is a fast entertaining easy read.