CAMINO ISLAND by John Grisham

Call me a literary snob and I won’t take umbrage. I’ve never read a novel by Grisham or Patterson or Balducci. I’ve stayed away from Stephen King in the last twenty years though I was crazy about his early work. My tastes run more to women’s fiction, historical fiction, satire. My book club, however, picked Camino Island as our January 2020 book, so I felt compelled to read it. Here are my observations:

Why would anyone want to read this story? Nothing much happens after the opening obligatory heist scene. Am I supposed to care what happens or will happen to our heroine? I don’t. We learn little about her to arouse our sympathies. There’s nothing about her or her actions that inspires sympathy. Why would Grisham bother to tell this story? Perhaps it’s a roman à clef about the literary scene? That seems plausible. In any case, not for me.