Camino Ghosts

 

Camino Ghosts – John Grisham

I recently read another fairly new offering by John Grisham, “The Boys From Biloxi” and felt it was one of his best books ever.  It’s a good thing I felt that way, because I’ve thought that many of Grisham’s latter-day books were lacking, and it’s been tempting to write him off (so to speak) as being yesterday’s news.  I’m glad I read that one when I did, because this offering only reminded me of my lukewarm feelings for Grisham’s works of late.   I simply didn’t like this one.

To be fair, I didn’t think I would enjoy this one much, so my opinion was somewhat skewed before I even started. This is Grisham’s third “Camino” book, and they haven’t been very endearing to my tastes.  Camino Island is a fictitious small island just off the coast of Florida that is a bit on the touristy side.  The appeal to such a place for John Grisham is that it’s also a haven for some of the more profitable authors in his make-believe world.  No, none of the mega-succesful writers live here, but there are a lot of moderately successful authors who choose to make this island their home, so they all hang out together and do a lot of eating, drinking, and complaining.  Of course, there’s also a bookstore on the island that’s rather eccentric, and the owner of the bookstore does a lot of eating, drinking, and complaining along with the authors. Such a setting, sadly, makes it tempting for Grisham to churn out some books.

Well, it turns out that there is ANOTHER island close to Camino Island that is about the same size, yet this island is deserted for some reason.  Islands this close to coastal America don’t stay deserted too long, and it’s only a matter of time before a greedy company is eying the island as a potential tourist attraction so they can potentially rake in boatloads of money.  So far, so fair; nothing that earth shattering yet, and of course this island’s history is somewhat buried early on.  Instead, Grisham makes us wade through his unpleasant regulars and their constant eating, drinking, and complaining.

We come to learn that this “other” island is deserted because it’s cursed.  It turns out that 250 years ago or so, this island started as a refuge for runaway slaves.  It’s founded when a slave ship encounters a mutiny, so there’s a lot of rich, unpleasant history.  The island is cursed in that no white man can set foot on the island and live.

The problem with Camino Ghosts is that it tries to do too much.  We get stories from 250 years ago, which is never pleasant for me when reading about the slave trade; I simply find such tales too barbaric to enjoy.  We then read about modern events where white people, oblivious to the history, try to survey the island for capitalistic purposes. (Remember, it’s cursed.)  We get all of our authors on Camino Island who discover the history and want to research and write about it, and we also get courtroom litigation over who “owns” the island.  It’s all a bit much, and too unfocused.

Had Grisham gotten rid of the annoying (to me, at least) “Camino” aspect, and told his tale without his annoying cast of characters, it may have managed to stay a bit more focused and interesting, but there was too much filler to pad what I thought the “real” story should be.  From what I can tell, though, a lot of Grisham readers enjoy the crowd on Camino Island and their day-to-day escapades, so my guess is that if you liked the first two offerings, you’ll probably enjoy this story better than I did.

I really hope, though, that Grisham leaves this island and its annoying inhabitants behind, and not go beyond a trilogy.  He has too many other good ideas to spend his time on as opposed to this particular locale.