The Whistler

The Whistler – by John Grisham

As I have stated in many of my recent reviews of John Grisham’s work, I have been suffering lately from “Grisham ennui”.   This guy writes a lot of books, and when 90% of them are about the law, and lawyers etc., it’s very easy to feel as you’ve already read much of the new stuff before. I guess “The Whistler” isn’t really an exception, but for some reason, I didn’t feel elements in this book were overtly redundant to his previous offerings.  I guess if I had to pick one of Grisham’s books that was the most similar to this one, it would be “The Pelican Brief”.  Since that one was one of the author’s earliest works and it had been over a quarter of a century since I’ve read it, it might be why I felt this book had more elements that were fresh as opposed to stale.

Our protagonist in this book is a 30-something investigator for the Board on Judicial Conduct named Lacy Stoltz.  I never knew an organization such as this board even existed.  Apparently, those who work for such an institute spend the taxpayer dollars to investigate judges across their particular state who might be in the wrong and are violating the ethics they’re sworn to uphold.  Actually, this is a rather mundane job for the most part, and Lacy and her co-workers manage to barely go about their day-to-day job since the budget for their work is unsurprisingly tight.  Not that this really matters.  Judges for the most part, after all, are mostly good people.

Until Lacy meets The Whistler.

Or someone ‘close’ to the Whistler.  In a remote, clandestine meeting, this individual has a big tip for Lacy.  He has some information about a judge who is much more devious and treacherous than normal.  This judge is apparently into a lot of corruption including things such as people being murdered and sending innocent people to jail.  All of this to ensure a casino is built nearby so the judge can participate in some regular scheduled skimming. Well, this judge is obviously backed by high profile criminals (it’s a casino, after all), so when Lacy starts innocently snooping around, bad things start to happen.  And by bad things I don’t mean prank phone calls or someone letting the air out of her car tires. 

If you wanted to be critical of this story, you could say that there really aren’t that many surprises within the pages.  There are no eye-popping scenes, nor times when you want to exclaim “Whoa! I didn’t see THAT coming!”  No, this story is pretty straight-forward without that many plot twists and/or gotchas.   Had this tale been written by anyone other than John Grisham, this trait might have been a serious strike against the book.  I can imagine where a typical reader might have to stifle a lot of yawns had this story been told by an unproven author.

But this is John Grisham, and the thing you have to remember about John Grisham is that his main strength is telling a strong, engrossing story. He knows just how to keep the plot going and make the story interesting enough to where the reader wants to read “just one more chapter” before turning in for the night.  If you’ve never read a John Grisham, it’s not what he writes about (again, “The Law”), but HOW he writes that makes his books so good.  You’re never bored. Even if the story doesn’t throw you a lot of curveballs.

So for my tastes, as long as John Grisham keeps his stories believable and not ridiculously stupid or disappointing, I come away with the feeling of time well spent.  I simply love to “listen” to this man tell a story.   Many books by other authors that I pick up can make me feel like I’m plodding through them because the story and/or the writing isn’t particularly strong.  John Grisham books are usually the opposite.  I enjoy the journey so much, that I want to keep going and can usually finish an entire novel of his in three or four sittings.

Is this book one of his best?  Well, no.  I think most would argue his best books were his first half-dozen or so. I think this is because, as stated, he tends to repeat himself and we feel as though we’ve read a lot of the new stuff before.  But like all things we’ve “done before”, if we continue to enjoy similar journeys, why shouldn’t we keep going and enjoy the ride?

The Vikings: A New History

The Vikings: A New History by Neil Oliver

Although this was mostly a very good book, I must first state that this really wasn’t what I was expecting. When I read “history” in a title, I really am wanting just that – a linear history of the subject matter.  I wanted to be transcended to the particular time and live through the events along with the people that created the story.  This really isn’t what you get with this book.  Now, to be fair, the Vikings lived over 1000 years ago, and we must remind ourselves that the further we go back in time, the less actual records of the time exist. This was several hundred years before the average laymen knew how to read and write, so one really shouldn’t expect that such famous marauders hired a secretary amongst the brood to keep a detailed journal.

In fact, I would argue that this book is more of an anthropology than a history. This book reminded me of watching one of those documentaries on the History channel where the narrator starts the biopic by walking into the camera view and begins with an introduction.  He’s in a field, or cemetery, or by a body of water, and he then starts talking to the audience about the subject of the program. He states that he’s actually standing where said events occurred hundreds, if not, thousands of years ago.  Throughout the program, we visit cemeteries, churches, castles, and many old relics as the history unfolds.  Not really a bad thing for a tv program, but it just didn’t seem an ideal narrative for a history book.

It seems as though we read more about the actual excavation of corpses and relics then the actual events during the times of the plundering and sackings that we always associate when hearing the word “Viking”.  We read a lot about the corpses’ teeth, the jewelry, and other accoutrements which, again, might be par for the course when one has to go back so far in history. It just seemed more of a distraction when I wanted to read about actual history.

When the author does get around to telling us the historical events, it isn’t necessarily done in a linear fashion either. This makes it harder when you’re trying to assimilate so many new names, places, and events from such a long time ago.  It’s almost as if the author (i.e. narrator) would rather focus on traveling from present-day location to location and telling a new story each time he arrives at a new destination.  Some of these new stories contain people we’ve already met in his earlier narratives, whereas other tales have brand new people and places; so it becomes a chore juggling all the different pieces.

It really is a good narrative though.  I was never bored.  You learn a lot of history of the Scandinavian countries and the people. We see the conquering and assimilation of many distant lands including England, France, Russia, Greenland, and even North America.  The pillaging never really comes across as too violent. I imagine the real history is somewhat more barbaric than the events described here.  Since the time period was quite a long time ago, this might be one of the most accurate recordings of the history of time – even if it is told in a rather unconventional way. I did learn a lot, it just really wasn’t quite I was expecting.

Counterattack (The Corps Series Book 3)

Counterattack (The Corps Series Book 3) by W.E.B. Griffin

Another W.E.B. Griffin book that’s part of yet another series.  These books are kind of strange in that I find them quite enjoyable, yet when I describe the books to someone, I’m a bit mystified by my appeal.  I guess you really have to read them to “get it”.  So give credit to the author.  This series (like the first one I read by him, “The Brotherhood of War”) is about the military.  Specifically, this book, the third in the series titled “The Corps”, takes place in World War II. It starts directly after Pearl Harbor and finishes with the landing at Guadalcanal.

Like most of his military books, there really isn’t that much “war” within the pages.  The book mainly deals with many of the soldiers (in the Marine Corps; of course) and their training, their assignments, and the overall politics of military life.  The characters mostly repeat from book to book in the series, yet as I recall, the events and timeline in this book run parallel to Book 2.  So some similar characters, but a lot of new ones.  There’s almost TOO many new ones. 

Fortunately, every time the author introduces a new character, he spends an adequate amount of page space detailing the person and their background. This allows us not to lose the individual in the “shuffle” since after we meet them for a chapter, we might not read about them again until 100 pages later or so.  

Again, there’s a LOT of actors in this particular play.  Then, of course, every time we’re reintroduced to a recurring character from a previous book in the series, we read a lengthy background about them as well.  Even though we “should” be familiar already with these characters, Griffin is smart enough to know most readers probably won’t retain the characters and their histories over such a large period of time. 

We read an awful lot about politics within the ranks, and this really shouldn’t surprise us.  Not all soldiers are warm, cordial, and loving to each other and there’s plenty of jealousy and backstabbing amongst the members of the corps. It seems the higher one goes up the chain in terms of military rank, the more tension and resentment occurs.  

Of course, then we come to the women in the story.  Now, I’m not sure if this author would be considered sexist or liberating when discussing his female characters.  The only reason that there are ANY women in this book, is so she can quickly shack up with one of marine corps members quicker than you can say Semper Fi.  Maybe I’m naïve, but were all women that slutty in the 1940s?  I would hope not. I mean Every. Single. Time a woman enters our story she’s quickly in bed with one of the soldiers.  Of course, there’s always women who enter our story who are already engaged or married to a soldier fighting in the war sometime, but the author always manages to kill off the boyfriend/husband in battle so our female characters can quickly hook up with a soldier.  It seems awfully silly at times. The only thing more ubiquitous than the sex in these stories is the booze.  It seems every officer, in every situation is never far away from a liquor cabinet stocked with cases of Scotch.  Again, maybe this was par for the course during the times.

I think the only thing that I really didn’t like about this book is that we have one marine captain who reports directly to (real) Secretary of Navy Frank Knox.  When our captain sends the Secretary confidential “eyes only” documents, Griffin decides to include the whole correspondence within the secret files; meticulously detailed in a different font than the rest of the book so it “stands” out as being different.  This isn’t bad by itself, but the correspondence that our character sends seems awfully detailed with useless trivial details about matters mostly inconsequential.  Don’t cabinet members have more important things to do with their time than read such insignificant ramblings?  I mean, if I’m bored as a reader, I can only imagine how the Secretary of the Navy felt.

So not a lot of war, but a pretty decent story with a lot of “how it really works” as far as military matters go.  These books are quite light reading even if they’re not necessarily brief.  It’s best, though, to start at the beginning if you’re going to read any of the books in the series.  Not crucial, but best.