The Racketeer by John Grisham

Book:  The Racketeer

Author:  John Grisham 

Grade:  B 

Recommended To:  John Grisham fans that don't care for accuracy. 

I try to read every John Grisham as soon as it comes out, but with the move, the house renovation, and birthdays and anniversaries, I just couldn't justify spending 20 whole dollars on this book as soon as it came out.

Then, I discovered the "Hot Reads" section in the Downers Grove Public Library.  I'm so pleased to be a member of a library again and the DGPL is excellent.  It is spacious, airy, and chock full of books.  Plus, you can rent kindle books and it is all free!  An amazing thing, libraries.

So, I browsed the Hot Reads section and it basically had every book that has been on my to-read list that I refused to pay full price for.  I picked up The Racketeer and The Black Box and finished them both very quickly.

The Racketeer is about a prisoner who makes a deal with the feds and is released from prison after giving up the name of the person who murdered a federal judge.   The story twists and turns and has a lot of cliffhangers that keep the reader's attention.  It was a very fast read and I liked the plot.

What I didn't like were some of the obvious holes that some slight research could have corrected.  Grisham freely admits in a note in the back of the book that he just wrote without researching and although he came clean, the book needed Wikipedia (at least!) to be believable.

A great story, gone slightly awry warrants a B grade.  I recommend this book as a summer beach read.

Happy Reading!!