Rating: 
Summary: A different Grisham, but a welcome addition.
Review: Not the expected legal thriller with yet another lawyer as the protagonist, THE LAST JUROR is instead a beautifully-written bird's eye view of life in a small Southern town during the 1970's. Instead of a lawyer, the leading character is a young man named Willie Traynor who buys the town's failing newspaper shortly before a brutal rape-murder takes place, forever changing life in Clanton, Mississippi (where Grisham's first novel, A TIME TO KILL, took place). Willie surprises even himself when he becomes a crusading journalist determined to do everything humanly possible to see a brutal murderer convicted and locked up for life.
This story not only taught me a lot about life in the South, but also described the ideal journalist, someone willing to put truth and integrity before his own personal safety. Not exactly a "thriller" like so many of Grisham's earlier books, but a fascinating and thought-provoking story.
Rating: 
Summary: kevin's brilliant insight
Review: Starting out, the book was pretty good. It caught you right away with the murder scene. I was hooked for a while... The book lost me, though, somewhere in the endless pages describing every different church imaginable. I felt like I knew all the characters pretty well, but I think a lot of it was unneccesary and just made the book kind of dry and boring in spots. Overall I think the book was pretty good. It could have been better though. Throughout the entire book it seems like you're getting set up for some huge dramatic ending. That dramatic ending never comes.
Rating: 
Summary: The Last John Grisham book I'll ever read.
Review: The Last Juror was a sad disappointment. I had heard great things about John Grisham but had never read any of his books. I chose to read this for a book club, and had it not been my responsibility to finish it, I probably would have never finished it. It was moderately suspenseful in the beginning, and then it just died off. Danny went to jail, and that was it. All of a sudden I was smothered with meaningless details about Willie's life and acceptance in Mississippi. At that point, I didn't care if Danny was guilty or not. I didn't care how the story ended. But as I said, I had to read it, so I skipped through a few pages of blabber, and made my way through the painfully boring ending. It was a sad excuse for a suspense novel.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best work
Review: The protagonist of this book is Willie Traynor, a young man fresh from college who, with the help of his wealthy grandmother, purchases a newspaper, The Ford County Times, in Mississippi. It is 1970 and all is quiet until a local woman is raped and murdered. Now a trial is set to begin with a member of the notorious Padgitt family. The jurors are selected, one of them being the first black female to serve and also a dear friend of Mr. Traynor. The trial is heavily covered in the paper, increasing the sales to Willie's delight. When the convicted, Danny Padgitt, is senctenced to life in prison, the town relaxes...except for those that understand that a life sentence doesn't necessarily mean he will remain in prison for life.1 Tension mounts years later when he is released on parole and deaths occurr once again in the town.Mr. Grisham is back to writing about the courts and laws, the things I love to read by him. But this book doesn't stick to just the courts. It's more of a mixture between his action packed earlier books (such as The Firm) and his later, low-keyed home town books (such as A Painted House). He spends a great amount of time exploring the lives of various characters, sometimes giving more detail than needed. I found myself becoming bored in spots, wishing for more excitement with Danny Padgitt.
Rating:
Summary: A Slow-Paced Novel about Doing Good in a Small Town
Review: There's little left of small-town life and constructive local newspapers in most of America now. Clearly, John Grisham regrets that and writes nostalgically about Clanton, Mississippi, as seen through the eyes of its one outsider, Willie Traynor, the new owner of the local newspaper. He even makes the drunks charming while smoothing out much of the pain of racism, segregation, the Vietnam War and economic woes. Mr. Grisham is so rosy that he sees the glass as overfilled with goodness. His narrator even visits every local church to report on their services. So if you like books that portray startling action, baffling mysteries or heart-pounding suspense, this is not the book you are looking for. While the jacket copy and advertising for the book focus on the trial of obviously guilty Danny Padgitt who raped and murdered a woman while her young children watched, that's just one story among many in the book. The novel builds around a series of short stories about the microcosm of Clanton as it reflected the pressures in the rest of the world. The main focus of the story development is around the growing friendship between young Willie Traynor and Ms. Callie Ruffin, a black mother who has raised an astonishing set of children (all but one of whom have Ph.D.'s). Ms. Ruffin is affected by the murder, having been selected as the last juror for that case. Although the principles that Mr. Grisham supports are ones that I agree with, his book is so prettied up and simplified that I found much of what he wrote about to be unappealing. There's an Aesop's Fables aspect to the story that makes it feel like it's aimed at children rather than adults. Human errors happen, but they are the exception to the reality. Corruption occurs . . . but it doesn't seem to harm anyone very much. Hatred exists . . . but the harm is mostly in creating homesickness. Inevitably, anyone who writes about small town Mississippi will be compared to William Faulkner. To compare this book to Mr. Faulkner's work would demean Mr. Faulkner. Stick to the original!
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