The Last Juror

Rating:
Summary: The Last Juror
Review: The Last Juror. John Grisham. United States, March 2004. 355

The last Juror is John Grisham's fisrt book since A Time to Kill to be set in Ford County, Mississippi. Like all other John Grisham novels, it it a courtroom suspense thriller that catches you in at the very beginning with a crime. Unlike other John Grisham Books, most of it takes place outside the courtroom and offices of lawyers. It is written in first person by a newspaper owner and reporter for the small county. This book deals with issues such as segregation and the Vietnam War. This book is set up to read like the diary and life of Willie Traynor in a small southern county.

The book starts out with the brutal rape and murder of Rhoda Kasselaw,a young widow looking for companionship. Her last words before she died in her neighbor's arms were "Danny Padgit. It was Danny Padgit." Danny Padgit belonged to a corrupt family who payed off the police and judicial system in order to be overlooked as they grew and sold marijuana extensively. Willie Taylor and his newly bought newspaper company are very excited to be dealing with such sensational news in quiet old Ford County. It is just what Willie needs in order to get the almost bankrupt newspaper going again. The court case and the story of Willie's life and the community are what the rest of the book deals with.

This book is filled with southern history in the seventies. Some of the points the author talks about are the influence of the Vietnam war, the corrupt nature of the judicial branch (which may not be just history), Black and white segregation and the desegregation movement, and when the President granted amnisty to draft dodgers, He talks about how these things affected the county that Willie lived in. After hanging out for with some Vietnam vets, Willie comments, "No wonder we lost the war-everybody was stoned."

Strangely, this book overwhelmingly has the theme of death which is not a habit for John Grisham. I'm not sure what the author's point in this would be. Maybe it would be, people die and you have to learn how to deal with it.

He might be trying to show us some history that we can learn from - for example, when talking about the Vietnam War. In the book, Willie writes "What the hell are we doing in Vietnam? ... Our failure has been even grander than that of the French, and we're not finished yet." This shows that the author definately thinks that we made mistakes in that war and that we should learn from them.

Maybe he is tring to show us that with all our fear of people who are different or mean, we lose sight of who's really dangerous; ourselves. When talkimg about the impact of black athletes in football after the desegregation, Willie says "But those white folks sho had been so adamantly opposed to accepting black students were suddenly transformed that Friday night." This shows that the author thinks that white people were making a bigger deal out of the segregation than need be. There was nothing to be afraid of.

These are just a few of my speculations. You can make your own when you finish reading the book. This book was very educational and interesting, but there was not much happening in the middle of the book. There was a big lull of just ordinary life and talk. Although this may be true about how life really is, you shouldn't write a book like that. If you are a patient reader and can get through the middle part, the book turns out to be very interesting, exciting, and educational.

Rating:
Summary: Ahh, the old South and the new
Review: There are so many riviting aspects to this latest Grisham novel that it's hard to know where to begin. First, there is the old vs. the new with regards to the south--how it has changed, is changing, and will change. That in itself is enough for a book and reminds me of other writers who have tackled that slippery slope: McCrae in his Bark of the Dogwood and Conroy in Prince of Tides. But the most intriguing aspect of this Grisham book is his characters. Then again, that's always the most intriguing aspect of his work. In any other writer's hands, the character of Danny Padgitt (how's that for a white trash name?) would be a cardboard cut-out. But in Grisham's he's flesh-and-blood. And Danny literally "gives" the newspaper in the town new life when he commits a murder. As with all media, they love sensationalism, and the Ford County Times--the paper that Willie Traynor now owns--is no exception. Seizing the opportunity, Traynor splashes the gory details all over "the Times" and the result is that he an instant celebrity and also a marked man. Padgitt finally gets his, but not full-out. His life sentence is evidently not quite as "lifelong" as everyone thought, and as soon as he's released, the killing starts. This, all because of his statement to the jury on his way out that he will have his revenge on the jurors. Lovely. Especially if you're one of them. All through this excellent plot, Grisham weaves the lives (or lackthereof) of the colorful characters in the town--yet another aspect of southern writing (again, McCrae or Conroy), and it's really these people that create the landscape and backdrop for this book. The entire novel reads like a well-done combination of Grisham's legal thrillers, his homage to Mississippi (A Painted House), and his foray into small town Southern America. Without a doubt this is his best effort to date.

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: Being a huge Grisham fan, I could not wait to read The Last Juror. That quickly turned to being unable to wait to finish it! The book began great, but quickly changed. It just seemed like it did not know where it was going...so many things, too many things were going on. I'd pass on this one.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful depiction of small southern town in 60's
Review: I loved this book. Being part southern,I can attest to the realism and beautiful prose along with a knockout plot. I hated to finish the book and wish there was a sequal in the works. Most of Grisham's books have interested, educated and entertained me. This one is one of his best along with a surprising change of pace. I cannot imagine anyone not loving this book. The characters are so real they jump off the page. If they ever make it a movie, it would never do the book justice. This is five star stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Not what his fans want but Grisham's best novel in years
Review: I actually managed to read "The Last Juror" without knowing anything more than it was the "new" John Grisham novel. From the title I assumed that it was about a trial and about a juror for that matter, in a similar vein to "The Runaway Jury," but that is not really the case even though the cove photograph certain reinforces the idea. There is a juror and there is a trial, but there are parts of a larger tapestry told by the book's narrator.

This narrator, who is not the titular figure, was born Joyner William Traynor but becomes known as Willie when he ends up working on a small newspaper in Clanton, Mississippi. Actually he ends up doing more than that, becoming the owner of the "Times" through a couple of simple twists of fate, although he never really graduated with a journalism degree from that "Ivy League" school Syracuse. Will, as he called himself, had his Triumph Spitfire and his long hair, but not much else going for him. However, this person Willie becomes rather interesting as he tries to build up the circulation of his little newspaper in Ford County. After all, even if he hails from Memphis he is still considered a Yankee by the people of Mississippi.

Along the ways he makes a friend of Miss Callie Ruffin, an elderly black woman who has eight children, the first seven of which have earned doctorates; we will learn about why the youngest child does not have his Ph.D. yet in the course of this tale. However, everything changes when the most sensational murder case anybody in Ford County can remember happens. Willie knows this is his big chance to boost circulation for his newspaper. However, this means crossing the family that has been running Ford County behind the scenes for over a hundred years.

Grisham makes the point several times that Mississippi is behind the times more than any other state in the Union and his Author's Note at the end acknowledges that he has mistreated some of the bad and weak laws that existed in the state in the 1970s, the decade in which this story was set. But "The Last Juror" really is about changing times, even if the changes come too late in the estimation of some. What Willie does to not only make Clanton a better place but to become a part of his adopted town is a recurring theme, even if it never seems to be the driving narrative of the novel.

The only real step in the story is when things start happening towards the end of the book and everybody in town assumes they know who is behind, whereas everybody that I know who has read the book (okay, that is just two other people, but all of us agreed) jumped to the right conclusion. Not in terms of who, mind you, but in terms of what was really happening. You would think some of the characters in the town of Clanton would have at least had an idle thought in this direction, but Grisham is being so blatant in ignoring the obvious alternative explanation that it is impossible not to guess what is really going on.

"The Last Juror" is set in the Deep South and has the rhythm of a story told on the front porch. Like many such stories it is about much more than what it is supposed to be about, so those who are compelled to find linear narratives in the novels they read are going to be frustrated, but hopefully not disappointed by Grisham's tale. You may not come to a final conclusion about what this novel is really about until you have read the final page, but there is really nothing wrong with that, even if it swims against the tide of contemporary best selling fiction. This is not a great novel or even a great Grisham novel, but it is a solid yarn, his best in years, and at this point in his career that may well be as good as it gets.

Rating:
Summary: easy to figure out, but still a good read
Review: I was hoping for another sleepless night poring over the pages of my latest purchase - alas, I just knew from the title title that JG was back in the saddle and about to hand us another heart-stopping,suspense-filled saga. NOT SO...(although my review of the book is delayed, I did buy it on the release date).
I enjoyed the lead characters way of gradually "finding his space" among the "regulars", but the storyline was VERY predictable.
I won't tell (I hate when people spoil the ending!!!) who the killer is, but JG gave a hint of some of the vintage Grisham stuff to which we've grown accustomed. Read this book or watch American Idol, both will probably conjure up the same emotions.

Rating:
Summary: Something new from Grisham
Review: I enjoyed this book. The protagonist, Willie Traynor, is a journalist/entrepreneur who grows up page by page, and I enjoyed his journey. The town of Clanton is carefully drawn. The book is true to the 1970s as I remember them. And the crime that is the catalyst was truly despicable and movingly told. All that said, there are some disappointments. First of all, I figured out whodunnit and why well before the book ended, and I hate it when that happens. And it does seem to be a valentine to the death penalty, which bothered me enormously. (This from the man who wrote THE CHAMBER?) Perhaps Grisham was just being true to the feelings of his characters, but the blood lust did strike me as creepy. Still, this is a very good writing trying something new, and I applaud the effort.

Rating:
Summary: well done
Review: The excellent writing style of this book reminded me of Jackson McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood" or possibly some other of Grisham's novels--"The Firm," or "King of Torts." If you're a die-hard thriller fan of Grisham, this is not the book for you. If you like "Painted House" and some of his slower works, you'll like this. I loved it--the man can write!

Rating:
Summary: A bait and switch that works
Review: I say bait and switch because being John Grisham, you expect full-blown legal thrillers a la Runaway Jury, The Firm, The Clietnt, etc. But we've seen him try to broaden his range by writing more "setting" and story pieces, rather than potboilers. This trend started with "A Painted House" which was just ok to me, and the thread continued with most of his books after that one where the character's personal story and growth was the theme rather than just the character's response to a situation. As long as the story is good, I don't mind. If you come to this book expecting a potboiler or vintage Grisham, you'll be dissapointed. If you come expecting a good story and seeing if Grisham's gotten better at telling character stories, you will like this book. I think that John Grisham is a storyteller along the lines of Stephen King (different subject matters but still able to grab you and hook you in) and I recommend this book to all those who want an interesting story to read. It is one of his better ones, almost as good as King of Torts.

Rating:
Summary: The Last Juror
Review: This book is well worth reading. After initially reading the leaf, one would expect a can't-put-it-down thriller such as "A Time to Kill" or the "Pelican Brief". I think it reads closer to "Painted House" because it does more to tell a tale of small town day to day life in rural Mississippi then a story revenged filled killer. A nice twist at the end helps spice up the story line.