Camino Winds

I haven't read any John Grisham in quite a while, although I certainly enjoyed what I read in the past, as well as  the movie spinoffs I watched. However, I found this book somewhat disappointing. Fictitious Camino Island, just off the east coast of Florida is a literary haven, anchored by Bay Books and owner/mover/shaker Bruce Cable. Cable loves to cultivate and foster budding young authors and doesn't mind bedding the attractive female ones, given that he is in an open marriage. There is a handful of other authors, who write in various genres, that make Camino Island their home, and independently wealthy (although perhaps not legally so) Bruce frequently hosts literary dinner parties in partnership with his antiques dealing and beautiful wife, Noelle. Bruce also has several author events each week at the bookstore during the busy summer tourist season. But this season is different because an unpredictable hurricane, Leo by name, decides to hit Camino Island head on. After the storm has passed, Bruce, his bookstore employee Justin, and crime writer Bob Cobb--all of whom remained instead of leaving--find that one of their friends, lawyer turn thriller writer Nelson Kerr, is dead. The police department want to write it off as an accident but Bruce and his pals find clues that suggest otherwise. When the local and state police seem all too willing to write this off, Bruce is determined to find out if the last book Nelson was writing might lead to the killer of his friend. Kerr has exposed some heavy hitter bad guys before and this time they may have decided they would go to any lengths to prevent publication of the book. Publishers Weekly sums up the rest of the action nicely, to wit: "Believing the manuscript is fact posing as fiction, Bruce retains the services of a dodgy security firm to infiltrate nursing homes. This effort leads to more murders, a cover-up, and a massive FBI operation to bring the book’s villains to justice."

The resolution of the book seems anti-climactic although perhaps more realistic for all of that. But, to me, none of the characters were very engaging. This is a sequel to Camino Island and I might have liked some of them better if I had read that. Kirkus writes a generally favorable review, although noting that "Cable is perhaps Grisham’s least sympathetic hero; he drinks night and day, sleeps around, and has few apparent scruples. At least he’s not a lawyer. Neither is he a cop..." The New York Times notes this effort is a hybrid of Grisham's earlier and more serious legal thrillers with a sort of beach book.