Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from a secure vault underneath Princeton – in this novel we are promised a murder. Camino Island at least had an interesting premise – the theft of $25m worth of F. Indeed, given that the setting of the book involves a vicious hurricane overtaking Florida, it is somewhat ironic how slow-paced the storyline is. And to finish off, Nick Sutton, the part-time Bookshop intern/student who is so lacklustre that he would make even the most boring dullard at Durham as flamboyant and compelling as Roger Stone.Īs literary works go, its fine – a little dreary at times and there is never any real uptake in the leisurely pace of the story. Bob Cobb, the ex-con who writes books about prison-violence, lacks any of the charm that should be a given of any American ‘outlaw’ in a post-John Wayne era rather than being seen permanently with fedora, revolver and stallion, he is an ugly lech. Myra Beckwith and Leigh Traine, the seventy-year-old lesbian Romance novelists, appear only briefly and smack of a self-interested editor telling Grisham to put in ‘a couple characters to keep the PC brigade happy’ they are sheer cartoons (one grossly fat with purple hair and an abrasive tongue, the other diminutive in all senses). Mercer Mann the would-be sleuth from the previous novel is barely mentioned, but for the fact she now has a boyfriend and a dog (yes that really is as interesting as it gets).
Bookshop owner Bruce Cable’s ‘quirkiness’ appears to entirely revolve around his ‘open marriage’ which is mentioned at every possible opportunity, his French wife, and the oh-so-snobbish book parties featuring authors from the island. The characters seem to lack any of the colour, audacity, ‘moral duty’ that we come across in earlier novels. Cottoned by enormous wealth and internal fame, would anyone’s work begin to suffer in quality? Would we all instead begin to write only about ourselves in a thinly veiled manner? Like Camino Island (2017), the quiet beachfront neighbourhood in which Bruce Cable and his atelier of authors live in Camino Winds seems to be a reflection of Amelia Island, in Florida – home to Grisham in the Summer months, and one naturally presumes that Cable’s atelier of wealthy authors might just be caricatures of his well-healed neighbours.
Perhaps that’s an inevitability when you’ve sold 300 million books, and own three houses and a private jet – I don’t know. I can’t help feeling that John Grisham is getting bored. Editor's Picks Literature on 20 June, 2020.
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