The story involves three very unlikable former judges, now convicted felons, sitting in a minimum security prison called Trumble carrying out an extortion scheme preying upon wealthy men looking secretly for gay lovers. There's an unsavory lawyer on the outside helping the judges and skimming some of the take. The unscrupable quartet lands their hooks into a closet gay politician on the way to the United States presidency.

The whole notion of being gay and wanting to keep it a secret didn't fit this story very well. I'm not sure why Grisham couldn't have chosen to exploit something juicier than people's private sexual lives? I also would rather have viewed a fictional politician with something more compelling than 'he doesn't want to be outted' as the victim. A Sarah Palin type would have been vastly more interesting a character than this Lake guy, who seemed like every other rich guy ascending to politics. I didn't dislike Lake because he was a closet gay--and in an offensive manner it seemed like the author and story were pushing me that direction--I disliked Lake because there wasn't anything different about him. This story was dated in 2000, but coming out isn't some gigantic shocker in 2013.

I'm not quite sure where the author was going with this angle of the story, and it makes even less likely that people carrying on secret non-heterosexual dalliances could be extorted for large amounts of money these days. And to be extorted by judges sitting in a federal prison seems even less plausible, nevermind the ludicrous ending. This was easily the worst story ending I've read all year, and that includes one book that I hated.

This novel wasn't a complete train wreck for me, I was fascinated in watching an accident scene carnage mentality how the scenes unfolded (I kept hoping there would be at least some character redemption), but it's a bad derailing from Grisham's usual quality level. I didn't hate it, but overall found it less likable than his unlikable characters. If I can't/don't/won't care about bad things happening--even implausible bad things--to anybody in the story, that pretty much summarizes for me literary failure.

This is my least favorite Grisham read to date--by far. 1.5 stars rounded up because, despite being a lousy story with unsympathetic characters, I credit a bestselling author for taking risks to escape from writing just another legal thriller. Readers can see that he tried stylistically and thematically to escape from his familiar narrative voice and subject matter. It's just the subject matter wasn't all that thrilling or realistic, thus spoiling the drama and thrills. The risk didn't payoff in this case, but the effort remains duly appreciated. 5,169 Kindle locations. Approximately 448 pages.

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Created Sep 08, 2013 at 4:14pm • Submit your own review...