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By John Grisham
Read by January LaVoy – 8h 45m
rating – B+ / crime
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This really isn’t up to Grisham’s standards or style it seems to me.  There were some very good parts though.  The basic story was fine, the setting was lovely, the characters were interesting and the ending was a bit curious. But the telling slowed the whole thing down.  I guess I’m glad I read it but it’s not like I wasn’t warned by prior reviews.

(There’s a bit of an epigraph which says “Thank you for the story” to someone.  I think that’s telling of something. I’m a huge fan of the Grisham legal thrillers – this is not one.

The early chapters introduce the main crime which consists of ripping off the original manuscripts of five F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton University. Later, Mercer Mann, a newly unemployed professor from somewhere who would much rather be a writer of novels is approached by an FBI agent to see if she will participate in then investigation.  There’s considerable money involved and she does it.  She has natural connections to a suspect in the wider case.