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I did not mean to imply that this was a bad book. Far from it. It is entertaining in it's own homely way but It's certainly not the John Grisham I remember from the eighties, the Grisham that wrote the edge of your seat thrillers like The Firm and The Pelican Brief.

"A jury sentenced Danny Padgitt to life in prison. He sentenced them to death!"

Setting

Welcome to Clanton, Ford County, Mississippi. Grisham returns the the setting for the first book he ever wrote, Time to Kill, for his latest release, The Last Juror.

Meet Joyner William Traynor aka Willie Traynor. Willie, who is the narrator for this story, is a reporter for The Ford County Times, when the newspaper goes bankrupt. Having freshly graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Journalism, Willie is in a position, with the help of his wealthy Grandmother, BeeBee, to buy the newspaper and does.

Plot

Willie is barely settling in as the Owner/Publisher/Editor etc. of his weekly publication, when the circulation is given a boost because of a particularly gruesome and violent murder of a widow named Rhoda Kassellaw. Danny Padgitt, one of the sons of a notorious, semi-legitimate clan of moonshiners and timber millers, who inhabit a nearby island, is arrested for the crime, after crashing his truck, making a getaway.

Sandwiched between the arrest and trial of Danny Padgitt, Willie decides to write a human interest story on a prominent local black family - the Ruffins. This remarkable family has eight children, seven of which have earned, not only college degrees but PHDs and are currently professors at various leading universities.

Upon their initial meeting, Miss Callie, the Ruffin family matriarch, serves Willie a scrumptious luncheon and Willie and Callie hit it off wonderfully and become fast friends. Later Callie is the Last Juror chosen for the Padgitt murder trial and thereupon sets history as the first Negro juror in Mississippi history.

The Trial

All the evidence points to Danny's guilt and even though he threatened to get the twelve jurors, if they find him guilty, (including Willie's newfound friend Callie Ruffin), the jury still finds him guilty.

Though the Juror's found Padgitt guilty of rape and murder, they cannot come to a consensus on the death penalty, so Padgitt is automatically sentenced to the alternative, Life in Prison, which at that time in Mississippi equated to ten years, less with good behavior, a fact that is withheld from juries. This angers the townfolk as they were sure that Padgitt would get the Gas Chamber. Everybody was mad but they didn't know who to be angry with, because the the jurors swore an oath to keep the vote a secret.

From this point forward we digress into a fairly dull albeit interesting dissertation, with a couple exceptions, about Willie's interaction in the community and how he turns a marginally profitable newspaper into a successful one.

The exceptions are where they try to sneak a parole hearing through for Padgitt and where Padgitt is observed in a work release program with little or no security. Our protagonist, Willie, shows up and rains on their (the Padgitt's) parade in both cases but the writing is on the wall. They are determined to get Danny Padgitt out and eventually they do.

Conclusion

I won't kid you about this book. I have very mixed feelings about what I read. On the one hand, it a warm friendly story about a fairly sleepy fictitious town and county in Mississippi, pretty much describing rural life in the South in the Seventies. And of course, Grisham has one of the best writing styles around. For this book he even added some southern homilies to make it feel more warm and fuzzy.

Except for the Padgitts and their sleazy lawyer, Lucien Wilbanks, the characters are likable if not lovable. The warm, lovable Callie Ruffin kept reminding me of Oprah Winfrey, though I don't know why. Other interesting individuals were Baggy, the staff reporter, who is drunk after twelve noon, Harry Rex, a lawyer and carryover from A Time to Kill, and Wiley, the part time staff photographer.

Once Danny Padgitt was sent off to prison, after a third of the book, with rare exceptions it was like reading Driving Miss Daisy. Grisham described how Willie had lunch every Thursday with Callie, and the techniques Willie used to build up the Paper and how he visited each of Ford Counties eighty some Churches for service, one per week and then finally, for about the last forty pages things got suspenseful again and does not end the way you are lead to believe.

Again, I say this still held my interest, there was never a danger of my not finishing the book, it's just that I buy Grisham for excitement, for thrills. This was vintage Grisham, sans the thrills and intrigue. Unfortunately he's been doing that a lot lately.

Frankly, the dust doesn't seem to be settling over this latest Grisham novel. Has any author, anywhere, anytime, ever created such furor when he changed styles? Surely this is an indication of his talent and popularity. But even so, you'd think that with that many fans, more of them would cut him some slack when it comes to changes in styles and/or subject matter. And THE LAST JUROR isn't that far off Mr. Grisham's regular path! It IS courtroom friendly, and DOES have elements of A PAINTED HOUSE and a few of his other works. So why the big upset? I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes good writing. Forget it's by Grisham--it's just a good read no matter who wrote it.

If you enjoy good writing, like McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD or other Grisham books such as A PAINTED HOUSE or KING OF TORTS, you'll like this book. All I can say is, give this one a chance.

Drivel and more Drivel....Grisham has lost his touch. You can't write good suspense novels using Harlequin Romance Techniques, filling the pages with unsubstantial filler. If you liked "The Pelican Brief", and was unsatisfied with "The Bleachers", then you and I will agree on this one.