Camino Island by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Let’s be honest. The theft of original manuscripts, even those written by a famous author like F. Scott Fitzgerald, has the potential to be deadly dull. I mean the faded, barely legible handwritten pages are only of interest to academics and collectors; they are kept out of sight in a vault and if they burned up the world wouldn’t know or care that they were gone. But somehow Grisham manages to keep this tale interesting. Much of the credit goes to the setting, the titular island off the coast of Florida. It’s beautiful, with small town charm and lots of beautiful people leading exotic lives. Heading the pack is Bruce Cable, owner of the local bookstore, and his wife Noelle, who sells French antiques. They have an open marriage with lots of uncommitted “flings,” unlimited wealth of mysterious origin, and a beautiful Victorian mansion. Now throw in Mercer Mann who spent her childhood visiting her grandmother on the island and owns part interest in the deceased grandmother’s cottage there. Mercer is a promising author who can’t write the second book, supports herself teaching English and faces insurmountable student debt. She is recruited by an investigative team with all the gadgets of an international spy ring to return to the island and spy on Bruce, who the investigative team believes is in possession of 5 manuscripts which were stolen from Princeton a year earlier. It’s a convoluted tale but Grisham keeps it moving by stepping back outside the characters — omniscient voice they used to call it before that was banned — and simply summarizing the action. The book opens with the theft which has all the necessary detail but slam, bam it’s done and we are introduced to Bruce, given a quick summary of his life, how he ended up with the bookstore and his wife and the house. Then bam, we meet Mercer and the unbelievable investigative team and an island full of writers who know how to party. Oh yeah, the missing manuscripts get returned to Princeton in another slam bam just the details finale, but that is soooo not what the book is about.