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Apr 29, 2019richmole rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
John Grisham gets self-indulgent. Well, after publishing close to 3 dozen adult novels (as separate from his YA kid-lawyer series), Mr. Grisham can do whatever he wants, it seems. Grisham's not the first novelist to play fast-and-loose with either (1) good writing, (2) plot structure or (3) length. He's got lots of company, including Ken Follett. Prime evidence: A Column of Fire, a meandering, crudely written mega-book--900+ pages--that boasts over 3,000 Amazon "reviews." It's a sad come-down for those who really appreciated Follett's first novels (Eye of the Needle, The Man From St. Petersburg, Lie Down With Lions and even the more recent Pillars of the Earth and World Without End.) He USED to be so good... Grisham's major fault here: right slam-bang in the middle of this mystery, we get a 10-chapter, 100-page flashback digression (or, as publishers put it, "back story") that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the plot. Not one single thread ties a main protagonist's past to the present-day of this southern small-town murder mystery. None whatsoever. Not that the long "aside" isn't interesting. It is; I now know more about WW II in the Philippines than I ever did before, and certainly thought ever I'd learn in a book about the point-blank shooting of a Methodist minister, in 1946. Bizarre. And the ending? Well, it's...shall we say, anti-climactic. Ho-hum. And life goes on... Well-written? Absolutely. Well researched? Yes: Grisham makes sure we know where he got his wartime detail. Also where he got the idea for the book's (main) story. I don't really fault Grisham here as much as I fault his editor, who should have dropped the manuscript, picked up the phone and shouted down the line, "John, I just finished the book. That's IT?? It's time to rewrite, my friend!" But when the "friend" is a literary giant...hmm, maybe not. Nobody, it seems, is telling Follett how to improve his overblown books these days, either. 3,000 Amazon reviewers? That's nothing. This book: over 4,600! Instead, when Grisham picks up, the Editor gushes: "LOVE it, John, and thanks for the opportunity to publish!" (And make oodles of bucks...) But, dear reader, if you want a mystery to leave you wide-eyed and and going "Wow!" This ain't the one.