2017 Book #37, "The Last Juror"

"The Last Juror"
John Grisham

A loosely told story of two relationships; one between the protagonist, the new owner/editor of a small-town newspaper, and the tiny, slow-moving Southern town itself, and between the same protagonist and his friend Miss Callie, a gentle, well-spoken Christian woman with an intriguing history. Their paths all cross following a brutal crime at the beginning of the book, following which Miss Callie is the last juror selected for the trial of the murderer. The trial ends halfway through the book, at which I was surprised (this being Grisham). The remainder of the story is filled with the goings-on of the paper, its rise to prominence in the lives of its readers and editor; the ebb and flow of the town, its changes and resistance to changes. The book touches on things as disparate as the Vietnam war, racism in the South in the mid-70's, and the economic impacts of big business on a small town. It is a rather sprawling book in subject, even as the whole thing is narrowly focused on the main character and the town he grows to care for.

Well written, although the denouement felt anti-climactic. The second half of the book dragged a bit. Maybe that was due to my predisposition to expect big reveals, cliffhangers, twists and turns and things like that. There was little of that sort of excitement in this novel. It felt more like something that maybe actually happened. It was just dull enough that it really seemed like it was the memoirs of a small town newspaperman, and just interesting enough to be curious as to how it turned out. Maybe if I had left aside my preconceived notion of what a Grisham novel is I would have enjoyed it more for what it was; a character-driven drama.