Just In Time For The Election Cycle

John Grisham.
Either you like him or you don't.

Or you use to like him but not really anymore.

Or maybe you use to really like him, got tired of him for a while but then started to like some of his newer stuff again. That latter one would be me. I really enjoyed most of his writing for quite a while. Especially The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client and The Partner. Until they all started to feel the same. Just a different story.

So I took a break from him for quite a while, then after a long respite, I read The Broker. Which, seeing as how I was into CIA books at the time, was okay. A while later, I tried The Last Juror. That one didn't really work for me. It felt like it rambled and rambled (enjoyable enough during the rambling, but I kept wondering how/when it would get where it was suppose to go) and then ... it kind of ended in a hurry. Disappointing.

But now I see he's come out with another new book. Back to the legal thrillers, it would seem.

“The Appeal” is John Grisham’s handy primer on a timely subject: how to rig an election. Blow by blow, this not-very-fictitious-sounding novel depicts the tactics by which political candidates either can be propelled or ambushed and their campaigns can be subverted. Since so much of what happens here involves legal maneuvering in Mississippi, as have many of his other books, Mr. Grisham knows just how these games are played. He has sadly little trouble making such dirty tricks sound real.

According to this review, Grisham makes no secret of his personal politics, 'a little to the left'. Which might explain the book's keen ear for the baloney of biased rhetoric, particularly when it comes from the right. But baloney is baloney in my book. Might just be worth a read.

H/T to How Appealing by way of the The California Bleg Blog of Appeal