My Weekly Book

The Rainmaker by John Grisham

I’ve been going through the Grisham collection recently and filling in the gaps left by the ones I haven’t read. Having greatly enjoyed The Client and The Chamber, this one had been on the cards for a while, came as a recommendation and was slated as ideal holiday reading. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s ever likely to make it to the top of my list of favourite Grisham novels (anyone wanting to avoid spoilers should probably stop reading from this point onwards).

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My biggest problem with it was the predictability of the storyline. It has been put to me that I should look on it as escapist wish-fulfilment – all the things happening in a courtroom which you always want to happen but never actually get. But I found it stretched credibility past breaking point and then, when it snapped, tied it up into a neat little bow – surely the hero should have had at least one reverse from the judge just to introduce a little element of tension. I thought the way his life was comprehensively taken to bits at the start of the story (a favourite tactic of Grisham’s) was too knowing and obvious. I think the golden rule that killing ALWAYS has consequences, particularly and especially for a character on the side of the angels, has been torn up and stamped into the dirt.

I didn’t get really hooked until about two-thirds of the way through. I was able to rationalise the ending by telling myself, well, that’s a snapshot of how young Mr Baylor feels today – after several very traumatic months. It’s not necessarily how he’s going to feel in a week, a month, or a year. I feel he’s stored himself up a whole lot of problems for the future and I don’t see his life getting much simpler any time soon.

Could I possibly be going off thrillers?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 at 2:20 pm and is filed under 2006 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.