This is without doubt the best legal thriller I’ve read this year, hands down the best. You never quite knew where the bubble would burst but you knew it would at some point. They would bubble and fester, they weren’t always present but it was as if they were stuck in limbo, waiting to emerge just like a pocket of air escaping water throughout the entire story. Now that I’ve finished Sycamore Row I can categorically say that those emotions never went away. Upon his death and his family’s arrival Lettie is cast aside like a mess on a shoe, left to fend for her family and unemployed.
Racist, obnoxious, opinionated and just plain vile – you can’t help but feel for Lettie the black housekeeper, a housekeeper tasked with looking after the house and an ailing Seth Hubbard for the last three years. Not of Grisham’s writing, his narrative or style, but Seth’s distant family. Firstly, and I can’t remember this happening before, I couldn’t help but grin as I lost myself in every page, in fact I wasn’t aware I was grinning until I heard my mobile ringing and looked away from the book – smiling! The second emotion was anger. Reading the first fifty pages of Sycamore Row I experienced two very different emotions. This is far from being a 'page-turner', and if you're looking for something with a bit more 'thrill' along the same lines, check out Connelly's The Fifth Witness or if you prefer to stay within Grisham's repertoire The Litigators is a Courtroom hoot. I even resisted the temptation on more than one occasion to skip sections as started repeating itself. There was no big surprise at the end which I was hoping for to bring this lackluster book up a notch, just a predictable explanation to the whole scenario. I really didn't get to root for or even relate to Jake, and the fact that his personal life was so hidden seemed strange. I admit this is a review for the Unabridged Audible version of the book, that had some cliche Afro-American voices and all the usual redneck-ness that readers throw into Grisham's books, but the story itself was just too slow. Firstly, I didn't see why this had to be set back in the late eighties (did so many people really have car phones back then?) and although I read A Time to Kill, to which this has been dubbed a sequel of sorts, I read it more than 15 years ago and remember it being a lot better than this.
For me personally, it would actually be a 2.5-star rating as Grisham's writing is commendable, but he has written so much better stuff.
Now, I know I'll probably get bashed for this, but this is one boring read.
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