Very entertaining. Very worthwhile. I wish more romance authors would write like him, but add romance.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
For another book someone wrote “literary slugger John Grisham returns with a story about...” I thought how true. He is a literary slugger – almost always on the New York Times best seller list. I periodically read John Grisham to remind me of great writing.

I have loved several John Grisham’s books, and this is another one. A number of things had me chuckling with surprise. The ending was feel good which is important to me. The ending had something I didn’t expect. During the story I enjoyed the way bad guy Fitch was frequently surprised and shocked at what Marlee and Nicholas did with the jury. I too was surprised with Marlee and Nicholas.

Grisham is so good at character development. I love how he “shows” things. We see some characters doing smart things and some characters doing stupid things. I was engaged from the start. It was hard to put down. I was always eager to get back to it.

One of the things Grisham does in this story that too many other mystery and suspense authors don’t do is watching Fitch and his people do smart things to solve the mystery. We see how they slowly learn more and more details about Nicholas and Marlee. That was neat. In too many other books the cops/investigators talk to people, try to get evidence, and frequently are helpless victims as well. They don’t do neat things to solve the mystery. They win through luck or accident not skill or smarts.

The book was not perfect, but it was so enjoyable it was still worth 5 stars. The main problem was too much technical talk about nicotine, addiction, cigarettes, and research during the trial. It was tedious a few times. I wish he would have condensed those scenes. But the rest of the book was so good, it was worth it.

STORY BRIEF:
A tobacco company is being sued by the widow of a man who died of lung cancer. Several tobacco companies contribute to the defense fund because a bad verdict for one could start a slew of cases for all of them. They hire Fitch to make things happen. Fitch is in the background. He hires the appropriate local legal counsel for the trial. He also hires investigators and bad guys to do things to influence jury members.

The story starts with lawyers and jury consultants studying every member of the potential jury group. One of the members is Nicholas Easter. They can’t find out much about him other than he is a part-time student and works in a computer store. Nicholas ends up on the jury. Once the trial begins, Marlee contacts Fitch. She tells him in advance things the jury members will be doing, which surprise Fitch when they happen.

DATA:
Unabridged audiobook length: 14 hours 10 minutes. Narrator: Frank Muller. Swearing language: none that I recall. Sexual content: none other than indirect references. Setting: current day mostly Biloxi, Mississippi. Copyright: 1996. Genre: legal suspense thriller.