i havent been here for too long! my headline said `10 days until Japan` and I`ve been here nearly 10...
i havent been here for too long! my headline said `10 days until Japan` and I`ve been here nearly 10 weeks...
Member since:12.05.2001
Reviews:32
Members who trust:17
…to think about the message of this book that is, because gripping though it is just as a thriller it also carries a message that certainly made me think. The basic plot is two racist rednecks in Mississippi kidnap and rape a 10-year-old black girl. They are arrested but the girl's father, unconvinced that he will get justice, decides to take matters into his own hands and he machines guns them down. He is charged with pre-meditated murder and faces execution if convicted. Along comes the hotshot lawyer who wants to defend the Man partly out of a sense of justice but partly to get himself publicity. At the same time the local Ku Klux Klan is stirring up racist hatred against the defendant and his lawyer In this novel Grisham asks the reader whether Vigilante justice can ever be justified and how we, if we were on a jury, would treat a person who'd killed two men for raping his daughter at the same time he explores race hatred in the Deep South. In doing this he also highlighted the huge differences in culture between the American South and the UK (and incidentally made me glad I was living in the latter).
Despite or probably because of its deep thought provoking properties I really enjoyed this book a lot and had difficulty putting it down: The characters are strong and in places very funny if sometimes a little over the top (e.g. The Drunk ex-lawyer brought along to help defend the accused is both). The factual stuff is as impeccably accurate as ever and the plot is full of typical Grisham twists and keeps you guessing most of the way through about what will happen next. I say most because I did find the ending a little predictable which is a lot more unusual for Grisham than for most thriller writers: with him usually the ending isn't really certain until you get there. Anyone who doesn't like violence on books should be aware that the Rape at the beginning and some later scenes are pretty graphic although they are always entirely relevant to the story and in no way gratuitous. If you've read some of Grisham's other books I'd say this is most like, if not quite as good as, 'The Chamber' in this issues it explores and the way it explores them.
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