the guardian book review john grisham

The Guardians

John grisham.

Quincy was framed, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison with no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. Then he wrote a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small innocence group founded by a lawyer/minister named Cullen Post.

Guardian handles only a few innocence cases at a time, and Post is its only investigator. He travels the South fighting wrongful convictions and taking cases no one else will touch. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another one without a second thought.

370 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2019

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THE GUARDIANS

by John Grisham ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2019

Fans—and Grisham has endless numbers of them—will be pleased.

The prolific Grisham ( The Reckoning , 2018, etc.) turns in another skillfully told procedural.

Pay attention to the clerical collar that Cullen Post occasionally dons in Grisham’s latest legal thriller. Post comes by the garb honestly, being both priest and investigative lawyer, his Guardian Ministries devoted to freeing inmates who have been wrongly imprisoned. Says an adversary at the start of the book, learning that his conviction is about to be overturned, “Is this a joke, Post?” Post replies: “Oh sure. Nothing but laughs over here on death row.” Aided by an Atlantan whom he sprang from the slam earlier, Post turns his energies to trying to do the same for Quincy Miller, a black man imprisoned for the murder of a white Florida lawyer who “had been shot twice in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun, and there wasn’t much left of his face.” It’s to such icky details that Post’s meticulous mind turns: Why a shotgun and not a pistol, as most break-ins involve? Who would have done such a thing—surely not the guy's wife, and surely not for a measly $2 million in life insurance? As Grisham strews the path with red herrings, Post, though warned off by a smart forensic scientist, begins to sniff out clues that point to a culprit closer to the courtroom bench than the sandy back roads of rural Florida. Grisham populates his yarn with occasionally goofy details—a prosecuting attorney wants Post disbarred “for borrowing a pubic hair” from the evidence in a case—but his message is constant throughout: The “innocent people rotting away in prison” whom Post champions are there because they are black and brown, put there by mostly white jurors, and the real perp “knew that a black guy in a white town would be much easier to convict.” The tale is long and sometimes plods, especially in its courtroom scenes, but it has a satisfying payoff—and look out for that collar at the end.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54418-4

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION

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BOOK TO SCREEN

IndieBound Bestseller

THE SILENT PATIENT

by Alex Michaelides ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 5, 2019

Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.

A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.

"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.

Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

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by Alex Michaelides

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Review: Grisham’s ‘The Guardians’ is suspenseful thriller

• Copy Link copied

“The Guardians: a Novel,” published by Doubleday, by John Grisham

In John Grisham’s latest novel, “The Guardians,” a former priest named Cullen Post works for an organization called Guardian Ministries that scours court transcripts and personal letters from convicts to determine if someone is wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he or she didn’t commit. If the organization believes without a doubt that the potential client is innocent, it will do everything it can within the boundaries of the law to free an innocent person, investigating and pushing for a new trial.

Quincy Miller has been in prison for 22 years — and still claims his innocence. A young lawyer was murdered, and suspicion quickly turned to Miller pulling the trigger. He says a fellow inmate fabricated a story about Miller confessing, and his ex-wife claimed that he owned several guns, which also wasn’t true. Another witness lied about seeing him flee the scene. Miller swears he never owned a gun, wasn’t anywhere in the area that night and that a key piece of evidence that later disappeared was planted.

It’s a bit much to believe that so many folks would be involved in a miscarriage of justice, but Post believes Miller and begins to dig into what happened that fateful night.

Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice. The Guardian team of characters is first-rate, and Miller’s attitude and mannerisms will have readers questioning what truth means in the world of the legal system.

https://www.jgrisham.com/

clock This article was published more than  4 years ago

What is left to say about a new John Grisham novel? ‘The Guardians’ has something to add.

What is there left to say about a new John Grisham novel?

Maybe only that Grisham has done it again.

“The Guardians” is Grisham’s 40th novel; he’s now 64 and has been writing suspense novels pretty much nonstop since “A Time to Kill” was published in 1989. Most of his novels are legal thrillers, but Grisham has also branched out into stories about rare books, sports and medicine. (His 2015 e-book, “The Tumor,” is about an experimental cancer treatment called focused ultrasound technology that Grisham champions.) Grisham has even written a YA legal series featuring a 13-year-old amateur legal eagle named “Theodore Boone.”

Such creative longevity is not that unusual in the suspense genre, but what is rare is Grisham’s feat of keeping up the pace of producing, on average, a novel a year (in 2017 he published two) without a notable diminishment of ingenuity or literary quality. Dame Agatha Christie, who barely paused between books to sharpen pencils during her near-50-year marathon mystery career, is another such marvel.

What John Grisham gets right about lawyers and the law

Which brings us to “The Guardians,” Grisham’s latest terrific novel. Grisham’s main character here is a so-called “innocence lawyer,” a workaholic attorney-and-Episcopal-priest named Cullen Post. Post has trimmed his life down to the barest of essentials, living in spartan quarters above the nonprofit Guardian Ministries, his workplace in Savannah, Ga. The book focuses on Post’s investigation into the wrongful conviction of a black man named Quincy Miller who was set up to take the fall for the murder of a white lawyer in a small Florida town some 22 years before the opening of this story. (In his life away from his writing desk, Grisham serves on the board of directors of The Innocence Project.)

Post’s efforts to ferret out exculpatory evidence in this cold case put him in grave danger because, for one thing, the shadowy drug cartel responsible for the murder has been known to hold grisly parties in isolated jungle locales south of the border. In the dead center of this novel, Post hears a cautionary tale from a traumatized survivor of one of these gatherings. This account calls upon Grisham to summon up his heretofore unrealized inner Caligula.

In an affecting backstory, Post recalls his early career as a public defender; but the grotesque contradictions of that job — particularly Post’s final assignment to defend a depraved teenage rapist and murderer — brought on a nervous breakdown. After a sincere “come-to-Jesus” moment during his recovery, Post was ordained and began serving with a prison ministry, which led him to innocence work and eventually Guardian Ministries. A trim four-person operation, Guardian Ministries consists of Post; an underpaid litigator who’s a single mother of boys; an exoneree named Frankie who’s turned private investigator; and the nonprofit’s founder, a former business executive who, similar to Post, had a conversion experience and dedicated her life to righting wrongs of the criminal justice system.

That said, “The Guardians” is nuanced in its moral vision: Post acknowledges that most of the prisoners who contact him alleging wrongful convictions are, in fact, guilty; but it’s the thousands of others who have become his vocation. “It’s fairly easy to convict an innocent man and virtually impossible to exonerate one,” Post reminds a potential client. So far, the team has exonerated eight prisoners.

Quincy Miller may just become the ninth. His fate will depend on a relentless re-investigation conducted by Post and his colleagues and some strong-arming of jailhouse snitches and other witnesses who gave false testimony years ago. The lawyer Quincy was convicted of killing turns out to have had ties to a drug cartel. So, too, does the now-retired sheriff who was in charge of the investigation 22 years ago. Post knows he’ll eventually have to visit the secluded scene of the crime, Seabrook, Fla., but he wisely hesitates. Thinking out loud with a colleague, Post says: “Our clients are in prison because someone else pulled the trigger. They’re still out here, laughing because the cops nailed the wrong guy. The last thing they want is an innocence lawyer digging through the cold case.”

In his titanic efforts to turn justice denied for Miller into justice delayed, Post courts danger both human and supernatural. The climax of “The Guardian” slyly nods to many a classic Nancy Drew ad­ven­ture: Post and Frankie steel themselves to break into a boarded-up haunted house, climb up into its dank attic and unearth (as Nancy would say) a “clew” that just may decide Miller’s fate — all before the drug gang gets wind of their location. Post is a driven and likable loner whom, I hope, Grisham will bring back in future novels. After all, as “The Guardians” makes clear, there’s plenty of work left for an innocence lawyer to do.

Maureen Corrigan , who is the book critic of the NPR program, “Fresh Air,” teaches literature at Georgetown University.

THE GUARDIANS

By John Grisham

Doubleday. 384 pp. $29.95

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Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the guardians.

The millions of readers of John Grisham novels in America and around the world will not be disappointed in his latest legal thriller, THE GUARDIANS.

Unlike many of his fellow popular authors, Grisham does not rely on a continuing main character or a recurring plot line to drive his story. Each of his works is a tabula rasa , usually involving a struggle between the good and bad guys. Grisham generally adds one other ingredient to his winning formula, as his novels are often focused on a significant issue in American legal society. He has touched upon the crisis in legal education brought about by for-profit law schools, the growth of tort lawyers and class actions, the election of judges and the poisoning of those elections with massive campaign spending, and the one dearest to his heart, the wrongfully convicted in our nation’s legal system.

"Because this is a thriller and not real life, Grisham gives readers an interesting twist often not present in actual exoneration cases.... As always in a Grisham novel, that effort is a page-turning thriller."

Guardian Ministries is an organization that was founded to address this very problem --- a tiny group of understaffed and underfunded attorneys and investigators seeking justice for those who the legal system has failed. As Cullen Post, a Guardian attorney, tells one of his prospective incarcerated clients, “[I]t’s fairly easy to convict an innocent man and virtually impossible to exonerate one.” Grisham has used Centurion Ministries, which was founded in 1980 and has exonerated 63 men and women in those four decades, as the lodestar for THE GUARDIANS.

This is a subject for which Grisham has great passion. Before his writing career exploded, he was a practicing attorney. As a writer, he became aware of exoneration organizations and now supports their work in a variety of ways. THE GUARDIANS is almost like a legal textbook, offering explanations and strategies for how a successful exoneration can come about. I say “almost” because as in most legal thrillers, there do come moments when readers must suspend disbelief as the plot demands something other than the real-life slow grind of our legal system.

In addition to Post, whose primary exoneration work is undertaken outside the courtroom, THE GUARDIANS is the story of Quincy Miller, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Keith Russo, a Florida attorney who represented him in an antagonistic divorce. Miller was convicted but spared execution when one juror would not vote for the death penalty. With the assistance of Post and the Guardian organization, Miller seems to be making progress towards establishing his innocence.

Grisham painstakingly provides readers with the difficulty of the process of exoneration. It takes time, money and passion. Witnesses must be located and questioned again, and evidence reexamined by competent experts. And reluctant prosecutors and judges must face the possibility that justice may not have resulted in obtaining the original conviction.

Because this is a thriller and not real life, Grisham gives readers an interesting twist often not present in actual exoneration cases. Miller was convicted in a knowing conspiracy to frame an innocent man. The real murderers are still around and need to protect themselves. Post must find evidence not only to clear Miller, but to prove the conspiracy to frame his client. As always in a Grisham novel, that effort is a page-turning thriller.

Grisham’s formula is fairly simple: “I start with a story, usually one I ‘borrow’ from the headlines…. When you live in this world, the material is endless.” But turning this formula into a wonderful novel is what makes Grisham a bestselling author. He shows no signs of slowing down, and why should he? Every day there are new stories available for him to share with his loyal readers.

Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman on October 16, 2019

The Guardians by John Grisham

• Publication Date: June 16, 2020
• Genres: Fiction , Suspense , Thriller
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Bantam
• ISBN-10: 0593129989
• ISBN-13: 9780593129982

The Guardians

“A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.”

—Associated Press

About the Book

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A classic legal thriller—with a twist. • "A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.” —Associated Press

In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young Black man who was once a client of Russo’s.

Quincy was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister.

Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought.

Read an Excerpt

Duke Russell is not guilty of the unspeakable crimes for which he was convicted; nonetheless, he is scheduled to be executed for them in one hour and forty‑four minutes. As always during these dreadful nights, the clock seems to tick faster as the final hour approaches. I’ve suffered through two of these countdowns in other states. One went full cycle and my man uttered his final words. The other was waved off in a miracle finish.

Tick away—it’s not going to happen, not tonight anyway. The folks who run Alabama may one day succeed in serving Duke his last meal before sticking a needle in his arm, but not tonight. He’s been on death row for only nine years. The average in this state is fifteen. Twenty is not unusual. There is an appeal bouncing around somewhere in the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, and when it lands on the desk of the right law clerk within the hour this execution will be stayed. Duke will return to the horrors of solitary confinement and live to die another day.

He’s been my client for the past four years. His team includes a mammoth firm in Chicago, which has committed thousands of pro bono hours,...

“Terrific…affecting…Grisham has done it again. Such creative longevity is not that unusual in the suspense genre, but what is rare is Grisham’s feat of keeping up the pace of producing, on average, a novel a year without a notable diminishment of ingenuity or literary quality.”

—Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post

“Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice. The Guardian team of characters is first-rate.”

– Associated Press

“With his début, 1989’s A Time to Kill , Grisham established himself as a skilled storyteller, a writer who can nimbly portray complex characters who overcome their fears and flaws to pursue justice. Thirty years later, his authorial prowess glows again in this riveting tale.”

— Fredericksburg Free Lance Star

“[Grisham] has created a powerful no-nonsense protagonist that you cannot help rooting for in a story stocked with tension and flavor that will have you flipping the pages to a very satisfying ending.”

— Florida Times-Union

“Grisham’s colorful prose is riveting, and the issue is a timely one that can be too easily overlooked…His fictional legal happenings convey a loud and clear ring of veracity.”

– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“ The Guardians , the newest legal thriller from John Grisham, a true wizard of the form, is certainly not going to disappoint. Fans of the author are going to find it wholly satisfying.”

– Anniston Star

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John Grisham: The Guardians review - nail-bitingly good | reviews, news & interviews

John grisham: the guardians review - nail-bitingly good, a damning indictment of the american legal system from top crime novelist.

Some two million Americans are currently in prison in America. A disproportionate number are black and nearly 200,000 are estimated to be innocent. John Grisham’s quietly horrifying new novel is a damning indictment of the inequities and corruption of the American legal system, which is shown to be not only corrupt but also profoundly inefficient and adept at making victims of those it incarcerates.

Over two decades before the story begins, in the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young white lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead while working alone at his desk late into the night. There were no witnesses and it appeared at first a motiveless crime. Nevertheless, the police arrested Quincy Miller, a young black man – one of a minority in the conservative town. As a client of Russo’s, Miller had been publicly incensed at the mishandling of his divorce. According to the police, he used a shotgun and was linked to the crime by a blood-spattered flashlight found at the scene. Conveniently for the police, all the evidence vanished in a fire while in storage, and a little while later a young policeman – also black – who may have had some knowledge of what happened to the evidence was ambushed and murdered. The police chief who had taken personal charge of the case, himself suspected of being up to his eyes in the drug trade, enjoyed a long and affluent retirement.

Grisham cites real-life cases as the inspiration for his fiction and it’s worth bearing in mind the case of the New York Central Park Five to understand the hideous miscarriages of justice of which the legal system is capable. Many of those who write to the Guardian Ministries are guilty; but a significant proportion are people who for one reason or another have been framed and become fall guys for the real criminals. If police, lawyers and judges rely on the testimony of inept witnesses and deeply flawed “experts”, the accused are easy to convict. And who has the incentive – let alone the resources – to investigate cold cases? Certainly not the state which might have to pay substantial damages if a convict is exonerated.

With Quincy Miller, Cullen Post gets far more than he’s bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Miller exonerated. “Our clients are in prison because someone else pulled the trigger. They’re still out there, laughing because the cops nailed the wrong guy. The last thing they want is an innocent lawyer digging through the cold case.” If they killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, they might as easily kill another without a second thought. Still, the person who is in deadly danger is Miller himself. He’s attacked in jail by fellow convicts who have been contracted to kill, bribed not just with money, but also mobile phones and drugs. The real reason Russo was killed emerges in a final twist, reliant upon the complicity of unexpected sources. It is not a pretty story: greed and lust are at its heart.

Other run parallel to Post’s investigation on Miller’s behalf. Duke Russell has been on death row for nine years, convicted of rape and murder, and is but an hour away from execution when Post manages a stay of execution. In the compass of his taut, dispassionate prose, Grisham actually manages to make bureaucracy interesting. The personalities of judges and prosecutors are as crucial as those of innocent prisoners, and decidedly not-so-innocent.

The Guardians is one of Grisham’s most quietly ferocious depictions of America’s dysfunction. He brings home the scale of the resulting human suffering and hones in on the hypocrisy of the richest country in the world which enshrines the highest aspirations for the human being in its founding constitution. Beyond the intertwining of plot and personality, he brilliantly conveys the texture of the South – the endless hours of driving, cheap meals in diners, lives lived at the very edge against the starkly contrasted mansions of wealthy lawyers. Among the most successful lawyers are those, ironically, who sue the State on behalf of wrongfully-convicted prisoners. Such huge amounts of money could be better spent fighting corruption and eradicating inefficiency. Grisham never lets his message interfere with the fascinating narrative. But from the nail-biting postponement of Russell’s execution to the culmination of Miller’s struggles, irony abounds. Grisham’s touch is light: his do gooders may be religious but they never preach.

• The Guardians by John Grisham (Hodder, £14.99)
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The Guardians by John Grisham Review

Innocent? How do you prove it?

Some writers can churn out more than one novel per year. John Grisham , the master of the legal thriller, has written over 40 novels (including his Theodore Boone YA novels) in 33 years. Even after that many books they are still as interesting, thrilling and enjoyable as his first, A Time to Kill (published in 1989) and are not in any way becoming jaded. 300+ million book sales and still going strong.

The Guardians is John Grisham’s 40 th novel. Published in 2019 it is a story of wrongful conviction, a workaholic innocence lawyer, and grave danger!

In The Guardians we are introduced to Cullen Post, a workaholic innocence lawyer who also happens to be part of the clergy – a lawyer and Episcopal priest all in one package. He works for a small firm, Guardian Missionaries, a small team of 4 that specialising in wrongful conviction cases and includes a man that Post had previously exonerated and is now the firm’s private investigator. He and Guardian are currently working on 8 cases after previously exonerating eight others.

The Guardians takes a look at a couple of cases but mainly focuses on the investigation into the wrongful conviction of Quincy Miller, a man who was framed to take the blame for the murder of his divorce lawyer in a small Florida town, sentenced to life without parole. He has so far spent 22 years of his life behind bars for a crime that he didn’t commit, and Post is convinced that he didn’t do it. He just has to find new evidence to prove his innocence.

Once Post starts to investigate, it starts to become a very dangerous case to be involved in. The further he digs he finds evidence of corruption and lies at all levels as well as a shadowy and extremely dangerous drug cartel hidden away in the background.

Overall, John Grisham’s The Guardians is a very good story. Written in the present tense it features a very high standard of storytelling. Whilst it does have a similar formulaic feel to some of his other books about wrongful conviction (Grisham is a member of the board of directors of the  Innocence Project ) it is still a very well-written interesting and enjoyable thrilling read.

The book is based around the true story of Centurion Ministries that was founded by James McCluskey. He worked to prove the innocence of the wrongly convicted. To date, Centurion have exonerated 67 innocent people (all of whom were serving life sentences of even facing the death penalty).

Whilst based on truth, the story of The Guardians itself is a very good work of fiction. It deals with corruption in the legal system, the death penalty, and how the legal system in the US shows prejudice. Grisham’s experience of being a lawyer and being part of the Innocence Project make the story feel very real.

With a cast of characters that are very well fleshed out, they are all excellent and believable, alive on the page.

The Guardians, whilst it may be similar and formulaic to some of his other books (and why not, it is a very successful formula that works well for him), it is a well thought-out story, one that is thrilling with plot twists that are hard to see coming. A very enjoyable read, especially for lovers of John Grisham or readers of courtroom thrillers (although a lot of the book is spent away from the courtroom).

Rating: 4.5/5

RRP: £20 (Hardback) / £8.99 (Paperback) / £4.99 (Kindle)

For more information visit www.jgrisham.com . Available to buy from Amazon here .

DISCLOSURE:  All thoughts and opinions are my own.  This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.

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The Guardians

57 pages • 1 hour read

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Summary and Study Guide

The Guardians is a legal thriller written by John Grisham. Published in 2020, it’s inspired by the true story of Joe Bryan, a man who was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and incarcerated for 33 years before being exonerated. An international best-selling author, Grisham was a lawyer for nine years before transitioning to writing full-time. He is a vocal and financial supporter of The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to get wrongfully convicted people exonerated—exactly like the Guardian Ministries organization described in The Guardians . Grisham’s legal knowledge is apparent in The Guardians , which lays bare flaws in the US criminal justice system while exploring broader societal ills like racism. This study guide refers to the 2020 Dell Mass Market Paperback edition of the novel.

Disclaimer: Please beware that The Guardians and this study guide touch on emotionally challenging and possibly triggering topics, including violence (murder/rape/torture), drug use, and racism (including use of racial slurs).

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Plot Summary

The Guardians is narrated in the first person by Cullen Post , a lawyer and Episcopal pastor, who works for Guardian Ministries, an organization that tries to free wrongfully convicted people from prison. In his career at Guardian Ministries, Post has helped exonerate eight people. When the book opens, he is heavily involved in two more cases. One involves Duke Russell , a white man wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a young woman, Emily Broone. The other involves Quincy Miller , a Black man wrongfully convicted of the murder of a lawyer, Keith Russo, in Seabrook, Florida, 23 years ago. The book follows Post and his colleagues at Guardian Ministries as they work to free these two men.

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Duke’s story is the B narrative , a subplot that is simpler and secondary to the A narrative, which is Quincy’s story. Although the book opens with Duke’s case, leading the reader to believe this will be the primary plot, Duke is exonerated a little over half-way through the book. The bulk of the narrative is dedicated to unraveling the complexities of Quincy’s case. The chapters follow Post and his colleagues as they piece together many different pieces of evidence to prove Quincy was framed for Keith’s murder. The work requires illuminating problems with the original case, such as the false testimonies given by witnesses who were coerced to lie to frame Quincy—and the dubious nature of fraudulent “expert” testimonies leveraging sham sciences like blood spatter, which have been proven to be “junk science” in the 23 years since Quincy was locked away.

The work Guardian Ministries does is tedious, involving tracking down people from decades ago. It’s also dangerous. Post learns that Quincy’s original defense lawyer Tyler Townsend was abducted and tortured while he was preparing to appeal Quincy’s conviction. As a result, Tyler did a shoddy job on the appeal on purpose, leaving Quincy stuck in jail. The dangerous nature of Quincy’s case becomes more apparent when it’s revealed that he was framed by Bradley Pfitzner , the former sheriff of Seabrook, who was in the employ of a notorious drug cartel, the Saltillo Cartel. Post learns that Keith had been working for the Cartel but then agreed to serve as an informant for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). The Cartel discovered Keith was double-crossing them and had him killed. The Cartel paid Pfitzner to frame Quincy for the murder. The dangers of a case involving a major cartel become even more apparent when Quincy is attacked in prison, putting him in the hospital in a life-threatening state.

Post learns that Quincy’s framing is linked to the killing of sheriff’s deputy Kenny Taft, which happened shortly after Keith’s murder. Kenny’s murder was orchestrated by Pfitzner, who wanted Kenny dead because Kenny had suspicions that Quincy had been framed. However, before Kenny was killed, he stole three boxes of evidence related to Quincy’s case from a shed where they were being kept. Shortly after, the shed was burned down in an apparent arson attack. As part of Post’s investigation, he tracks down the three boxes. In them, he finds a “smoking gun” piece of evidence: a blood-spattered flashlight the prosecution in Quincy’s case claimed he held when shooting Keith. Since the flashlight had supposedly been destroyed in the fire, photos of it were used at Quincy’s original trial. Upon DNA testing it now, Guardian Ministries discovers the blood on it is rabbit blood. This critical piece of evidence helps to exonerate Quincy.

Although Quincy is ultimately exonerated, the book lays bare the complicated, lengthy, and expensive process (for example, to pay for DNA testing) that it takes to release someone from prison. It simultaneously shows how easy it is to lock someone away for something they didn’t do. In addition to exposing the flawed nature of the criminal justice system, the narrative explores issues of racism both in the legal system and in the United States at large. For example, Quincy—despite the lack of hard evidence against him—was first convicted by an almost all-white jury. Post surmises the only reason Quincy did not get the death penalty was because of the one Black juror present at the time. Although Quincy is ultimately exonerated, it’s a bitter-sweet moment: One man goes free (but has lost 23 years of his life to imprisonment) while thousands of innocent people remain incarcerated, put away by a corrupt system where the odds are against them.

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The Guardians

By john grisham, by john grisham read by michael beck, category: suspense & thriller, category: suspense & thriller | crime fiction, category: spanish language fiction, category: suspense & thriller | crime fiction | audiobooks.

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Oct 15, 2019 | ISBN 9780385544184

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711 Minutes

Oct 13, 2020 | ISBN 9780593400357

720 Minutes

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About The Guardians

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A classic legal thriller—with a twist. • “A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.” —Associated Press In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young Black man who was once a client of Russo’s.  Quincy was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister. Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated. They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

Hace veintidós años mataron a un abogado. Lo volverán a hacer sin pensarlo dos veces. En la pequeña ciudad de Seabrook, en Florida, un joven abogado llamado Keith Russo fue asesinado de un disparo una noche que trabajaba tarde en su oficina. El asesino no dejo huellas. No hubo testigos del crimen, y se desconoce el motivo por el que alguien querría matar al abogado. Sin embargo, la policía sospechaba de Quincy Miller, un joven de raza negra que fue cliente de Russo años atrás.   Quincy fue juzgado, arrestado, y condenado a prisión de por vida. Durante veintidós años, Quincy languideció en prisión, manteniendo su inocencia. Pero nadie lo escuchaba. No tenia abogados, ni nadie que lo defendiera. En su desesperación, Quincy escribió una carta a Los Ministros Guardianes, una pequeña empresa de caridad dirigía por Cullen Post, un abogado que a su vez es un ministro episcopal.    Los Guardianes aceptan pocos casos inocentes. Cullen Post viaja por todo el país luchando por anular convicciones erróneas, y toma a los clientes a los que el sistema ha olvidado. Sin embargo, el caso de Quincy Miller será particularmente difícil. Los asesinos de Keith Russo son poderosos y crueles, y harán lo que sea para evitar que Quincy Miller sea exonerado. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION  • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought. In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo’s. Quincy was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister. Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated.

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Also by john grisham.

About John Grisham

John Grisham is the author of thirty novels, one work of nonfiction, a collection of stories, and six novels for young readers.

Product Details

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“Terrific…affecting…Grisham has done it again. Such creative longevity is not that unusual in the suspense genre, but what is rare is Grisham’s feat of keeping up the pace of producing, on average, a novel a year without a notable diminishment of ingenuity or literary quality.”—Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post “Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice. The Guardian team of characters is first-rate.”– Associated Press   “With his début, 1989’s A Time to Kill , Grisham established himself as a skilled storyteller, a writer who can nimbly portray complex characters who overcome their fears and flaws to pursue justice.  Thirty years later, his authorial prowess glows again in this riveting tale .”— Fredericksburg Free Lance Star   “[Grisham] has created a powerful no-nonsense protagonist that you cannot help rooting for in a story stocked with tension and flavor that will have you flipping the pages to a very satisfying ending .”— Florida Times-Union “ Grisham’s colorful prose is riveting , and the issue is a timely one that can be too easily overlooked…His fictional legal happenings convey a loud and clear ring of veracity.”– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “ The Guardians , the newest legal thriller from John Grisham, a true wizard of the form , is certainly not going to disappoint. Fans of the author are going to find it wholly satisfying.”– Anniston Star

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Review: Grisham’s ‘The Guardians’ is a suspenseful thriller

The prolific writer's latest novel explores the world of defense attorneys working for little pay and prestige to help innocent people who are incarcerated.

The Guardians

By John Grisham

Doubleday. 384 pp. $29.95

Reviewed by Jeff Ayers

In John Grisham’s latest novel, The Guardians , a former priest named Cullen Post works for an organization called Guardian Ministries that scours court transcripts and personal letters from convicts to determine if someone is wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he or she didn’t commit. If the organization believes without a doubt that the potential client is innocent, it will do everything it can within the boundaries of the law to free an innocent person, investigating and pushing for a new trial.

Quincy Miller has been in prison for 22 years — and still claims his innocence. A young lawyer was murdered, and suspicion quickly turned to Miller pulling the trigger. He says a fellow inmate fabricated a story about Miller confessing, and his ex-wife claimed that he owned several guns, which also wasn’t true. Another witness lied about seeing him flee the scene. Miller swears he never owned a gun, wasn’t anywhere in the area that night, and that a key piece of evidence that later disappeared was planted.

It’s a bit much to believe that so many people would be involved in a miscarriage of justice, but Post believes Miller and begins to dig into what happened that fateful night.

Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller, this one touching on false incarceration, the death penalty, and how the legal system shows prejudice. The team of characters is first-rate, and Miller’s attitude and mannerisms will have readers questioning what truth means in the world of the legal system.

From the Associated Press.

Watch CBS News

John Grisham tackles wrongful convictions and bogus forensics in new novel, "The Guardians"

October 15, 2019 / 11:25 AM EDT / CBS News

John Grisham's latest legal thriller, "The Guardians," centers on a lawyer-turned-minister whose calling in life is to help exonerate innocent people from prison. As Grisham told "CBS This Morning," it's based on real-life lawyers who have spent their careers freeing the innocent and is dedicated to one man in particular: James McCloskey.

"He's a remarkable man. He started an outfit called Centurion Ministries 45 years ago. For 45 years James has roamed the country, taking a few cases at a time. And 45 years later he's exonerated 63 people. Innocent people," Grisham said. "Centurion Ministries now is based in Princeton. It's a wonderful organization with a staff that litigates from coast to coast and get innocent people out."

Grisham, lauded as the king of the legal thriller, hopes the book can shine a light on both the prevalence of people who are wrongfully imprisoned in the U.S. and lesser-known issue of "bogus" forensics.

"We have no forensic standards in this country. We're trying to adopt them. But there are thousands of people in prison who were put there by bogus 'experts.' People who testify about bite-mark analysis or boot print analysis or blood spatter. Most of it's not based on science," Grisham said. "We're working with the Innocence Project, Centurion Ministries — the innocence community is working to undo so many bogus convictions based on junk science."

"The Guardians" isn't Grisham's first book about a wrongful conviction. His 2006 non-fiction best-seller, "The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town," centers on a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter. 

The topic, he says, embodies everything we love in stories.

"Every wrongful conviction is a fantastic story because of the level of human suffering, the injustice, the just storytelling, all the factors that we love in stories, they're in a wrongful conviction," Grisham said. "I wish I could write every one of them."

• John Grisham

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                                                                                 1                Duke Russell is not guilty of the unspeakable crimes for which he was convicted; nonetheless, he is scheduled to be executed for them in one hour and forty‑four minutes. As always during these dreadful nights, the clock seems to tick faster as the final hour approaches. I’ve suffered through two of these countdowns in other states. One went full cycle and my man uttered his final words. The other was waved off in a miracle finish.      Tick away—it’s not going to happen, not tonight anyway. The folks who run Alabama may one day succeed in serving Duke his last meal before sticking a needle in his arm, but not tonight. He’s been on death row for only nine years. The average in this state is fifteen. Twenty is not unusual. There is an appeal bouncing around somewhere in the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, and when it lands on the desk of the right law clerk within the hour this execution will be stayed. Duke will return to the horrors of solitary confinement and live to die another day.      He’s been my client for the past four years. His team includes a mammoth firm in Chicago, which has committed thousands of pro bono hours, and an anti-death penalty group out of Birmingham that is spread pretty thin. Four years ago, when I became convinced he was innocent, I signed on as the point man. Currently I have five cases, all wrongful convictions, at least in my opinion.      I’ve watched one of my clients die. I still believe he was innocent. I just couldn’t prove it in time. One is enough.      For the third time today, I enter Alabama’s death row and stop at the metal detector blocking the front door where two frowning guards are protecting their turf. One holds a clipboard and stares at me as if he’s forgotten my name since my last visit two hours ago.      “Post, Cullen Post,” I say to the dunce. “For Duke Russell.”      He scans his clipboard as if it holds vital information, finds what he wants, and nods to a plastic basket on a short conveyor belt. In it, I place my briefcase and cell phone, same as before.      “Watch and belt?” I ask like a real smart‑ass.      “No,” he grunts with an effort. I step through the detector, get cleared, and once again an innocence lawyer manages to properly enter death row without weaponry. I grab my briefcase and cell phone and follow the other guard down a sterile hallway to a wall of bars. He nods, switches click and clang, the bars slide open, and we hike down another hallway, trudging deeper into this miserable building. Around a corner, some men are waiting outside a windowless steel door. Four are in uniform, two in suits. One of the latter is the warden.      He looks gravely at me and steps over. “Got a minute?”      “Not many,” I reply. We move away from the group for a private chat. He’s not a bad guy, just doing his job, which he’s new at and thus he’s never pulled off an execution. He’s also the enemy, and whatever he wants he will not get from me.      We huddle up like pals and he whispers, “What’s it look like?”      I glance around as if to evaluate the situation and say, “Gee, I don’t know. Looks like an execution to me.”      “Come on, Post. Our lawyers are saying it’s a go.”      “Your lawyers are idiots. We’ve already had this conversation.”      “Come on, Post. What are the odds right now?”      “Fifty‑fifty,” I say, lying.      This puzzles him and he’s not sure how to respond. “I’d like to see my client,” I say.      “Sure,” he says louder as if frustrated. He can’t be viewed as cooperating with me, so he storms off. The guards step back as one of them opens the door.      Inside the Death Room, Duke is lying on a cot with his eyes closed. For the festivities, the rules allow him a small color television so he can watch whatever he wants. It’s on mute with cable news giddy over wildfires out west. His countdown is not a big story on the national front.      At execution time, every death state has its own silly rituals, all designed to create as much drama as possible. Here, they allow full‑contact visits with close family members in a large visitation room. At 10:00 p.m., they move the condemned man to the Death Room, which is next door to the Death Chamber where he’ll be killed. A chaplain and a lawyer are permitted to sit with him, but no one else. His last meal is served around 10:30, and he can order whatever he wants, except for alcohol.      “How you doing?” I ask as he sits up and smiles.      “Never felt better. Any news?”      “Not yet, but I’m still optimistic. We should hear something soon.”      Duke is thirty‑eight and white, and before getting arrested for rape and murder his criminal record consisted of two DUIs and a bunch of speeding tickets. No violence whatsoever. He was a party boy and hell‑raiser in his younger days, but after nine years in solitary he has settled down considerably. My job is to set him free, which, at the moment, seems like a crazy dream.      I take the remote and change channels to one from Birmingham, but I leave it on mute.      “You seem awfully confident,” he says.      “I can afford to. I’m not getting the needle.”      “You’re a funny man, Post.”      “Relax, Duke.”      “Relax?” He swings his feet to the floor and smiles again. He does indeed look rather relaxed, given the circumstances. He laughs and says, “Do you remember Lucky Skelton?”      “No.”      “They finally got him, about five years ago, but not before serving him three last meals. Three times he walked the gangplank before getting the shove. Sausage pizza and a cherry Coke.”      “And what did you order?”      “Steak and fries, with a six‑pack of beer.”      “I wouldn’t count on the beer.”      “Are you gonna get me outta here, Post?”      “Not tonight, but I’m working on it.”      “If I get out I’m going straight to a bar and drinking cold beer until I pass out.”      “I’ll go with you. Here’s the Governor.” He appears on‑screen and I hit the volume.      He’s standing in front of a bank of microphones with camera lights glaring at him. Dark suit, paisley tie, white shirt, every tinted hair gelled with precision. A walking campaign ad. Sufficiently burdened, he says, “I have thoroughly reviewed Mr. Russell’s case and discussed it at length with my investigators. I’ve also met with the family of Emily Broone, the victim of Mr. Russell’s crimes, and the family is very much opposed to the idea of clemency. After considering all aspects of this case, I have decided to allow his conviction to stand. The court order will remain in place, and the execution will go forward. The people have spoken. Clemency for Mr. Russell is therefore denied.” He announces this with as much drama as he can muster, then bows and slowly backs away from the cameras, his grand performance complete. Elvis has left the building. Three days ago, he found the time to grant me an audience for fifteen minutes, after which he discussed our “private” meeting with his favorite reporters.      If his review had been so thorough, he would know that Duke Russell had nothing to do with the rape and murder of Emily Broone eleven years ago. I hit the mute again and say, “No surprise there.”      “Has he ever granted clemency?” Duke asks.      “Of course not.”      There is a loud knock on the door and it swings open. Two guards enter and one is pushing a cart with the last meal. They leave it and disappear. Duke stares at the steak and fries and a rather slim slice of chocolate cake, and says, “No beer.”      “Enjoy your iced tea.”      He sits on the cot and begins to eat. The food smells deli‑ cious and it hits me that I have not eaten in at least twenty‑four hours. “Want some fries?” he asks.      “No thanks.”      “I can’t eat all this. For some reason I don’t have much of an appetite.”      “How was your mom?”      He stuffs in a large chunk of steak and chews slowly. “Not too good, as you might expect. A lot of tears. It was pretty awful.”      The cell phone in my pocket vibrates and I grab it. I look at the caller ID and say, “Here it is.” I smile at Duke and say hello. It’s the law clerk at the Eleventh Circuit, a guy I know pretty well, and he informs me that his boss has just signed an order staying the execution on the grounds that more time is needed to determine whether Duke Russell received a fair trial. I ask him when the stay will be announced and he says immediately.      I look at my client and say, “You got a stay. No needle tonight. How long will it take to finish that steak?”      “Five minutes,” he says with a wide smile as he carves more beef.      “Can you give me ten minutes?” I ask the clerk. “My client would like to finish his last meal.” We go back and forth and finally agree on seven minutes. I thank him, end the call, and punch another number. “Eat fast,” I say. He has suddenly found his appetite and is as happy as a pig at the trough.      The architect of Duke’s wrongful conviction is a small‑town prosecutor named Chad Falwright. Right now he’s waiting in the prison’s administration building half a mile away, poised for the proudest moment of his career. He thinks that at 11:30 he’ll be escorted to a prison van, along with the Broone family and the local sheriff, and driven here to death row where they’ll be led to a small room with a large glass window that’s covered with a curtain. Once situated there, Chad thinks, they’ll wait for the moment when Duke is strapped to the gurney with needles in his arms and the curtain will be pulled back in dramatic fashion.      For a prosecutor, there is no greater sense of accomplishment than to witness an execution for which he is responsible.      Chad, though, will be denied the thrill. I punch his number and he answers quickly. “It’s Post,” I say. “Over here on death row with some bad news. The Eleventh Circuit just issued a stay. Looks like you’ll crawl back to Verona with your tail between your legs.”      He stutters and manages to say, “What the hell?”      “You heard me, Chad. Your bogus conviction is unraveling and this is as close as you’ll ever get to Duke’s scalp, which, I must say, is pretty damned close. The Eleventh Circuit has doubts about the trivial notion of a fair trial, so they’re sending it back. It’s over, Chad. Sorry to ruin your big moment.”      “Is this a joke, Post?”      “Oh sure. Nothing but laughs over here on death row. You’ve had fun talking to the reporters all day, now have some fun with this.” To say I loathe this guy would be a tremendous understatement.      I end the call and look at Duke, who’s feasting away. With his mouth full he asks, “Can you call my mother?”      “No. Only lawyers can use cell phones in here, but she’ll know soon enough. Hurry up.” He washes it down with tea and attacks the chocolate cake. I take the remote and turn up the volume. As he scrapes his plate, a breathless reporter appears somewhere on the prison grounds and, stuttering, tells us that a stay has been granted. He looks bewildered and confused, and there is confusion all around him.      Within seconds there is a knock on the door and the warden enters. He sees the television and says, “So I guess you’ve heard?”      “Right, Warden, sorry to ruin the party. Tell your boys to stand down and please call the van for me.”      Duke wipes his mouth with a sleeve, starts laughing and says, “Don’t look so disappointed, Warden.”      “No, actually I’m relieved,” he says, but the truth is obvious. He, too, has spent the day talking to reporters and savoring the spotlight. Suddenly, though, his exciting broken‑field run has ended with a fumble at the goal line.      “I’m out of here,” I say as I shake Duke’s hand.      “Thanks Post,” he says.      “I’ll be in touch.” I head for the door and say to the warden, “Please give my regards to the Governor.”      I’m escorted outside the building where the cool air hits hard and feels exhilarating. A guard leads me to an unmarked prison van a few feet away. I get in and he closes the door. “The front gate,” I say to the driver.      As I ride through the sprawl of Holman Correctional Facility, I am hit with fatigue and hunger. And relief. I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and absorb the miracle that Duke will live to see another day. I’ve saved his life for now. Securing his freedom will take another miracle.      For reasons known only to the people who run this place, it has been on lockdown for the past five hours, as if angry inmates might organize into a Bastille‑like mob and storm death row to rescue Duke. Now the lockdown is subsiding; the excitement is over. The extra manpower brought in to maintain order is withdrawing, and all I want is to get out of here. I’m parked in a small lot near the front gate, where the TV crews are unplugging and going home. I thank the driver, get in my little Ford SUV, and leave in a hurry. Two miles down the highway I stop at a closed country store to make a call.      His name is Mark Carter. White male, age thirty‑three, lives in a small rental house in the town of Bayliss, ten miles from Verona. In my files I have photos of his house and truck and current live‑in girlfriend. Eleven years ago, Carter raped and murdered Emily Broone, and now all I have to do is prove it. Using a burner, I call the number of his cell phone, a number I’m not supposed to have. After five rings he says, “Hello.”      “Is this Mark Carter?”      “Who wants to know?”      “You don’t know me, Carter, but I’m calling from the prison. Duke Russell just got a stay, so I’m sorry to inform you that the case is still alive. Are you watching television?”      “Who is this?”      “I’m sure you’re watching the TV, Carter, sitting there on your fat ass with your fat girlfriend hoping and praying that the State finally kills Duke for your crime. You’re a scumbag Carter, willing to watch him die for something you did. What a coward.”      “Say it to my face.”      “Oh, I will Carter, one day in a courtroom. I’ll find the evidence and before long Duke will get out. You’ll take his place. I’m coming your way, Carter.”      I end the call before he can say anything else.

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Review: John Grisham's latest, set in northern Florida, has lawyers in search of 'Camino Ghosts'

I f you're a John Grisham fan who was put off by last year's disastrous sequel to "The Firm," "The Exchange," you might want to give him another chance.

The legal thriller maestro's "Camino Ghosts" returns him to the genial characters from his "Camino Island" and "Camino Winds," who all check in and out of a remarkably prosperous bookstore on the fictitious Camino Island, which Grisham has said was inspired by Amelia Island, off the coast of northern Florida.

Like the other "Camino" books, "Ghosts" is briefer and more light-hearted than Grisham's straight-up legal thrillers — no one gets killed during the course of the new one, or even seriously threatened.

The "Camino" books have felt like palate cleansers for Grisham, something fun to do before tackling the weightier issues that usually form the backbone of books such as "The Client" and "The Associate." (The first "Camino Island" was a caper, touched off by the theft of an F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript.).

"Ghosts" blends legal thriller elements with the friendly bickering of the island's residents. Bookstore owner Bruce Cable and his pals come to the assistance of a woman named Lovely Jackson, who is descended from enslaved people and who is attempting to establish a claim on a now-deserted island, where her ancestors lived after they escaped from slavery.

As usual, Grisham has a few legal surprises to spring on us as the case unfolds and his characters, while not particularly deep, are fun to hang out with.

Most importantly, the plotting instincts that deserted Grisham in "Exchange" are back in "Camino Ghosts." The legal case may drag out over months, as actual legal cases do, but Grisham makes sure the book moves like the winds that buffet his fictional island.

Camino Ghosts

By: John Grisham.

Publisher: Doubleday, 293 pages, $29.95.

©2024 StarTribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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The View hosts stress 'it's all fiction' as John Grisham says he considered writing more Supreme Court assassinations

"The court has never looked this bad," Grisham said on "The View," after noting that he "thought about" writing more Supreme Court deaths after "Pelican Brief."

Writer John Grisham prompted a swift clarification from The View cohosts when he suggested that the current state of the Supreme Court made him consider writing another book about the assassination of justices following The Pelican Brief .

The 69-year-old author appeared Wednesday on the talk show to promote his new book Camino Ghosts , which features View moderator Whoopi Goldberg as narrator of its audio edition. As the interview shifted to current affairs, Grisham said that he's "not really noted for accuracy" when it comes to reflecting real life, though panelist Joy Behar said she felt his work is "art imitating life" before asking him about upcoming projects.

"Life right now in the courtroom is getting a little scary. Let's take the Supreme Court right now. A lot of people have issues with them," the 81-year-old said. "Do you have any thoughts on that? Or maybe writing a book or making a movie out of that?"

Grisham reminded her of "a great book called The Pelican Brief , in which two Supreme Court justices were assassinated," before telling her that he's "thought about doing it again."

The show's studio audience laughed after Grisham's comment, though his words elicited a quick point of clarification from the cohosts.

"Writing part two. He's talking about writing part two," Goldberg said, turning to the crowd.

"It's all fiction," Grisham added. "It's all fiction," Sunny Hostin observed. "It's all fiction," Goldberg repeated.

"It's just fiction," Behar, too, stressed. "It's made-up stories!"

Still, Grisham continued, saying that “the court has never looked this bad, in my lifetime," citing "the rulings" and "the ethical challenges" as the basis for his assessment.

"It went downhill in 2000, when five Republicans on the court chose to elect the president. That was the most political," he said.

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives for Grisham for comment.

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Grisham appeared at the end of an episode led by an interview with First Lady Jill Biden. In the year leading up to the November election, The View has welcomed several high-profile political guests on both sides of the aisle. In January, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared at the Hot Topics table to warn that "we should all be scared" of a potential second-term Trump presidency, months after Hillary Clinton issued a similar word of caution to viewers as she sat for an interview with the cohosts.

The View  airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on  ABC .

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Camino Ghosts

• Genre: Thrillers - Suspense
• Published: May 28, 2024
• Previous Rank: n/a
• Buy at Bookshop.org
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#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham takes you back to Camino Island where bookseller Bruce Cable and novelist Mercer Mann always manage to find trouble in paradise. In this new thriller on Camino Island, popular bookseller Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann an irresistible tale that might be her next novel. A giant resort developer is using its political muscle and deep pockets to claim ownership of a deserted island between Florida and Georgia. Only the last living inhabitant of the island, Lovely Jackson, stands in its way. What the developer doesn't know is that the island has a remarkable history, and locals believe it is cursed...and the past is never the past...

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