A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Grisham’s tale unfolds at a leisurely pace, never breaking into a sweat, and if the bad guys seem a touch too familiar, the rest of the cast make a varied and believable lot, and some might even be fun to ride out a storm with, at least if they're unarmed.Ī pleasure for Grisham fans and an undemanding addition to the beach bag.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. Kerr, who, it must be said, is dispatched in a way nicely in keeping with Floridian lifestyles. That leaves it to him, an intern, a girlfriend, and assorted other players to piece together what happened to the unfortunate Mr. Neither is he a cop, though he’s quicker on the scene than the island’s homicide investigator-“I didn’t know we had a homicide guy,” Bruce allows, since murder is rare in these parts. Enter bookstore owner Bruce Cable, friend, drinking buddy, and sometime editor and adviser of Kerr and other members of Camino Island’s literary crowd, including “an ex-con who’d served time in a federal pen for sins that were still vague.” Cable is perhaps Grisham’s least sympathetic hero he drinks night and day, sleeps around, and has few apparent scruples. But then, so would others whom Kerr has written about, including money launderers and-well, let’s just say other entrepreneurs who wouldn’t like their activities to be described in any detail. In the wake of a ravaging hurricane, one of them turns up dead-a nice, affable fellow named Nelson Kerr, a former trial lawyer who “ratted out a client, a defense contractor who was illegally selling high-tech military stuff to the Iranians and North Koreans.” It’s not hard to understand that the client might want Kerr dead. A tempest is bearing down, and murder most foul is afoot in Grisham’s latest whodunit.Ĭall it a metamystery: Grisham, prolific producer of courtroom thrillers, moves the action to a Florida resort island populated by mystery writers.

Grisham camino winds