The Last Juror

Rating:
Summary: and the verdict is....
Review: that this book probably deserves closer to 3.5 stars. The story centers around young Willie Traynor who becomes the owner of a small town Southern newspaper. As with all small towns, news travels fast and when a horific murder is committed, the news spreads like wildfire. Justice is demanded and small town grievances and bullies are all the talk of the town. The last juror is really someone who Willie befriends during the course of the novel. Less about law and more about small town life in the deep South. The law that is referenced is obviously well reserached and the author makes note of what he cites as intentional discrepancies. I happen to like the thrill of Grisham's earlier novels better than this one. It reminded me too much of A Time to Kill really. I'd recommend taking this out of the library and would suggest it as a good in flight read in lieu of a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Mississippi Human Interest
Review: The Last Juror is a tough one to rate. I enjoyed it, but what was described on the back cover did not portray what is really inside the book. I expected a series of murders in the Mississippi town of Clanton in which a serial killer wipes almost the entire jury that convicted him. Only about 75% through the book does this plot start to really develop only to reach resolution with a screeching thud. In fact the entire ending is like a curtain being suddenly pulled down. This part of the book gets one star. However, the vast majority of the book is a very enjoyable and informative (for this Yankee) portrayal of life in Mississippi told from the perspective of a sympathetic, but wary outsider. This outsider is a recent college graduate who buys the local weekly newspaper and then explores his new environment in order to get stories for the newspaper. He also seems to be a friendly, good-hearted guy. His vocation becomes a vehicle for meeting and describing the local characters, customs, social mores, good works, corruption, and vices. Along the way, he meets a lot of fascinating people (and eats a lot mouth- watering meals). Grisham's great gift is making the day-to-day experiences of life interesting and heart-warming with human failings not left out. The characters are far from angels, but this is not "Mississippi Burning" either. Those who liked The Painted House will enjoy this one too. At the end of this day, I strongly recommend this book and am glad it did not turn into the extreme mass mayhem to the legal system that the title implies.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but for a Grisham book?
Review: I'll be honest, this is the first Grisham book I've read. I though it was a great book, as far as a novel depicting a character and a town, and the changes that both go through over time. However, it wasn't what I expected with my first Grisham novel. The main point of the book was not the murder which happens in the first 20 pages. I will make this comparison: If the film "A Time To Kill" is an exact representatin of the book, and you enjoyed reading the book, then "The Last Juror" is one you want to stay away from

Rating:
Summary: Not Grisham's Best
Review: In "The Last Juror," John Grisham attempts to blend the style of the legal thrillers which made his career with the old-fashioned and atomspheric quality of "The Painted House." The result is not unsuccessful, but it's also not up to Grisham's usual standard.

Grisham tries to capture the feeling of rural Mississippi in the 1970s, but his descriptions aren't very period-specific; the story could be taking place at any point in the past 60 years. Sentences are often confusingly constructed, as if Grisham wrote the novel in a hurry and didn't edit it. Miss Callie is a nicely drawn, complex character, but the rest of the cast is superficial by comparison.

The dust jacket tries to play up the suspense element: "...men and women who served on a jury nine years ago are starting to die one by one--as a killer exacts the ultimate revenge." But don't be fooled: the killing of jurors doesn't begin until the last fifth of the book. I'm terrible at figuring out mysteries, but the identity of this killer was obvious even to me.

Grisham tries to throw too much into the mix: life in rural Mississippi, desegregation, Vietnam, a discourse on Southern churches, an expose of the legal and parole system in Mississippi in the 1970s, a Wal-Mart style incursion -- all in addition to his legal story. There is so much material that nothing can be treated in depth. Nothing, that is, except the marvelous descriptions of Southern cuisine.

"The Last Juror" is an enjoyable read, but it is not up to the quality I have come to expect from such a fine author as John Grisham.

Rating:
Summary: GRISHAM HAUNTS THE "HALLS OF JUSTICE" AGAIN ... A MASTER
Review: The Last Juror is a very intriguing story and I was pleased to learn more about the southern town of Clanton, Mississippi where Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was also set.
Being a life-long journalist, former newspaper owner, and current author, I particularly related to the newspaper angle in this book.
Grisham is the master of the courtroom, so I'm glad he's back haunting the "halls of justice." It's a page-turner, as I find all of Grisham's work. His superb style and suspenseful "twists and turns" held my interest from beginning to end.
Reviewer - Betty Dravis, author of MILLENNIUM BABE: THE PROPHECY and the soon-to-be-released young adult novel, THE TOONIES INVADE SILICON VALLEY




Rating:
Summary: Pleasant to read, if slow
Review: It seems to me that how you rate this unusual Grisham story depends on what kind of story you are judging it as. It you judge it as a fast-paced legal thriller, it's worth only two or three stars. But if you judge it as a historical story of small town life in the deep south, three decades ago, in which most things that happen are very ordinary, except for some events connected to a sensational murder/rape case, then you give it four or five stars. (Since legal thrillers make more money than small town stories, and the publisher is promoting the thriller angle, I'm wondering why the publisher didn't just insist on another legal thriller. Maybe the publisher is so afraid to loose such a lucrative author that he or she just has to publish anything he writes, and Grisham just felt like writing this one.)

The story is not very complicated. In the early 70s, Willie Traynor, after doing poorly at university up north, buys the struggling local newspaper in Clanton, Miss., and spends the next nine years struggling to build its circulation. And as he does so, writing about events in the region, we get to understand the social set up in the deep south in the 70s, with all its race problems. I have never lived in the south, and found his account quite interesting.

The sensational events, related in about a third of the book, involve a brutal rape murder by Danny Padgitt, no-good son of a dubious but wealthy Padgitt clan, whose stronghold is in a river peninsula near the Tennessee state line. Danny is convicted, and goes to jail swearing revenge on the jurors, one of which is an older black woman, Callie Ruffin. Callie is from the other side of the tracks in Clanton, but has unusually successful children, except for one wayward son. Willie covers the story of the murder in detail, in spite of threats from the Padgitt clan. He also becomes a friend of Callie, and uses his newspaper to inform the white community of how smart her children are, and how well they're doing. But nine years later, when a corrupt lawyer gets Danny out of jail, jurors start getting killed, and Callie's life is in danger ....

The writing is very good, and the book is pleasant to read, if slow. I just finished reading the Star Wars Epic "Labyrinth of Evil", and compared with that it's a snail's pace. It's certainly no legal thriller either, but it has a charm all of it's own. I figure it's worth the average of 2-3 stars for a thriller and 4-5 stars for an interesting small town story about a part of the country I know little about. That works out to 3.5 stars, so I'll give it four stars.