“The Whistler” by John Grisham – Book Review

This book is a chunky thing, 400 pages plus, and deals with corruption amongst the American judiciary.

Lacy Stoltz with her colleague Hugo, specialise in precisely that area, and then meet a man called Greg Myers, who tells them stories they can barely believe, and alleged wrongdoing that must be investigated.

So begins John Grisham’s story “The Whistler”, where the writer takes his readers on a bumpy ride through legal misdemeanours and shenanigans.

This one like so many others of his is set mainly in and around Florida and takes in Indian reservation territory and the peculiar laws and customs that govern such areas. I sure learnt a lot about that, stuff I didn’t know before, so much so that I am wondering how much of it is factually correct.

That’s the thing about fiction books, the writer can make things up as he or she goes along, a tool that Mister Grisham is famous for reminding us about.

There are no real long drawn out court cases and trials here as one finds in many Grisham books, with a late exciting denouement, but no matter, this is still an interesting book if you like thrillers with a legal background.

I found it quite a page turner too, not one of John Grisham’s best, but certainly not one of his worst either.

If you like Mister Grisham’s work, the chances are you may like this one too, but as usual, the one star review brigade have been out in force. Some people just seem to get a huge kick out of bashing truly successful authors. I wonder if they could write a book one tenth as polished as this. For the sake of balance, there re loads of 5 star ***** reviews too!

I liked the book, and I liked the main character Lacy Stoltz, so much so that I wondered what happened to her after this book ended, and that of course is what any writer is after. The potential and possibility for a follow up is there for all to see, though I suspect we won’t see one.

All in all, a solid 4 stars **** from me, and as ever I shall be looking out for his next one too.