Book Review: The Litigators

** Glimpses of the “old classic Grisham” but overrun by monotonous predictability.

I have read every John Grisham Book.

“The Client” was the first novel I finished in less than 24 hours.  I think “The Firm” and “The Pelican Brief” and “Runaway Jury” are some of the greatest books ever written.  I loved “An Innocent Man.”

I keep “The Confession” on my bookshelf at work to remember the effects of the death penalty.

I have been thoroughly disappointed in recent years as all his books became boring, predictable, and kind of pointless.

THIS BOOK had glimpses of greatness.  It had some fun and intriguing characters, a few fun side plots – but the main plot was obvious from the very beginning and never deviated.  I was getting bored through the middle of the book and I kept waiting for some great twist or development to make the book exciting again.

It never came.  Oh sure – during the trial there was a moment of fun, but it didn’t make up for the hundreds of pages of buildup.

The “escape” at the end was also predictable – since it was the ONLY side plot fully developed.  It’s like John Grisham wants to make all his new books as realistic as possible – and he can’t find a way to make great twists or unpredictable outcomes seem realistic – so he short changes us.

He’s still a great writer.  He still writes well – but his ideas aren’t what they used to be.

This book is the best he’s written in years, but it’s still pale in comparison to his first four books.