Dec 3

Dec 3 John Grisham's The Racketeer - personally recommended

Ideas for reading, Fiction, books I love to read

A tense, gripping and pleasingly intricate thriller

John Grisham is one of those highly successful writers who get a bad press. If you’ve been put off this author by the critics, The Racketeer is a good place to start so you can form your own opinion.

According to Forbes, he ranks sixth in the world’s highest-earning authors (2017), just a step behind Stephen King and Dan Brown, all members of the bestseller royalty whose undisputed queen is J.K.Rowling.

While nobody questions Rowling’s literary prowess and it’s an extraordinary fact that her Harry Potter novels have even been translated into Latin, Grisham, King and Brown sometimes get slated in reviews.

I don’t mind admitting that I love all three of these brilliant thriller authors and I think the essence of their success is that their books are simply unputdownable: each in their own way tells a riveting story, driving forward an intricate plot at a cracking pace.

As a reader who has tried twice (and failed) to complete James Joyce’s Ulysses, I am not averse to literary fiction, far from it. I cherish the works of many classical writers including Thomas Hardy and George Elliot, and I love a good, long and even challenging read. But the enjoyment to be gained from losing myself in a fast-paced thriller that grips me from the very first page is exhilarating: pure escapism. And I’m all for it. It’s like riding in a sports car once in a while instead of cruising along in a Rolls Royce.

In The Racketeer, the first person narrator that we come to respect and care for is a black lawyer named Malcolm Bannister, in prison for a crime he didn’t know he was committing. Thanks to the FBI. But when a Federal judge is murdered and the FBI is at a loss how to solve the crime, Bannister is the one who holds the key. And he has had plenty of opportunity in jail to plan just how he can use his knowledge to secure release and beat the Feds at their own game. He doesn’t just want to get out. He wants to be free forever. And he is a canny lawyer.

There is a bit of love interest in the story but Grisham shies away from the emotion of romance. Nevertheless, his main characters are well-rounded and convincing. It’s embarrassing to admit now, but when I first read Grisham around twenty years ago, it encouraged me to think I could become a novelist – I could do better than that, I thought. Well, I no longer do. His style is terse and seamless and although this isn’t the kind of novel that I’m trying to write, he has definitely tackled that initial weakness in character portrayal, so that the whole experience is satisfying as well as brainteasing fun.

I read it in three days. Tense, gripping, pleasingly intricate. No spoilers!

Thank you for reading this! And don't forget, if you ever feel pangs of guilt about making time to read as many books as you want, my post Permission to read will set you straight, especially if you're a budding writer!

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Book details: The Racketeer by John Grisham, Hodder paperback 386 pages, ordered from the Book Depository for €7,97. This is my preferred online bookstore as delivery is free of charge and the service is reliable: books arrive at my home in Italy from England in just a few working days, in good condition and as ordered.