Camino Island: A Novel by John Grisham (Epub)

Description

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, impossible to resist.

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in unsavory ventures.

Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous monetary offer convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Cable’s circle of literary friends, to get close to the ringleader, to discover his secrets.

But soon Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise—as only John Grisham can deliver it.

User’s Reviews

Review “Tasty . . . a fresh, fun departure . . . sheer catnip . . . a most agreeable summer destination.” —USA Today

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ This book sounds good on paper. A fun, heist-oriented plot; interesting subject matter with the writer angle, great potential for that perfect blend of suspense, mystery and intrigue, and a popular proven author. Unfortunately, it delivers on virtually none of its potential. Before I point out a laundry list of irritations, I will just say a really good way to describe my reading experience with this novel is to point out two things I did while reading it.1. I had to double-check several times to make sure it wasn’t an abridged version.2. I also, seriously, double-checked to make sure it was a John Grisham novel.Ok, the laundry list:1. This book was begging for a subplot about the circumstances around grandma’s death. Characters were introduced and the set-up was there…. and then, just nothing.2. Our protagonist was milk-toast. You neither hate nor like her much.3. There was seriously NO intrigue, no twist, no turns, no suspense, no mystery… just boring and obvious.4. No cleverness factor. You can’t write a heist novel and have no clever heist things happening. The one or two attempts were pretty weak and again – obvious.5. Did I miss something? The way the story played up the question of whether or not the Cable’s were married made you think it would eventually be relevant to the plot. It wasn’t. Very odd.6. The dangerous aspect of one of the thief’s was weird. Early on you think he will factor into the plot on the suspense side of things. He ends up being one more character who kind of disappears from the book, for most of it.7. I thought it was kind of strange we never had any interaction with the sister.8. Terrible, terrible ending. It fit the rest of the book though. Anti-climactic and boring.9. The guy running on the beach? Character sort-of introduced, and then…. nothing.This book was so short. Makes me think the intention was originally for a longer book and to cover more ground but for some reason it got slashed down to a “short” story. That would help explain the oddness of things, people, etc., that were briefly introduced and then never mentioned again. would have needed to be twice as long to cover the ground it teased it would. If you’re going to write a short heist story, it’s got to be tight, clever and interesting. This book was the opposite.

⭐ I don’t think it would have been possible for me to not like this book. We have a gang of thieves who stole very valuable original transcripts of some classic books. Then we have an enigmatic, boisterous book keeper who may or may not be a criminal. Then we have the struggling writer who worms her way into a world she wasn’t ready for.This book is exciting, intriguing, and fun. I read this book in almost no time at all. I couldn’t put it down. I almost didn’t want it to end. The characters are fun and quirky. The mystery keeps you on your toes. The book isn’t too deep where you get lost in the muck.I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book. I want to see what these characters get themselves into next. It’s sure to be more quirky, mysterious fun.

⭐ Paper thin characters and a flat plot make this a disappointing novel. It’s so bad that I’m kicking myself for wasting money on it. I was sucked in by promising first chapters, which detailed the heist of rare manuscripts from Princeton University’s library. But the fun stopped just pages later as the thieves made mistakes not foreshadowed by their meticulous preparation for the heist. The clever, resourceful high tech bad guys suddenly became petty thugs.An unhappy writer/adjunct professor was recruited to help get the manuscripts back. Sounds good, but she could not possibly be more dull. She whines her way through a flat plot, collecting intel on a bookstore owner suspected to having stolen the manuscripts.Even as I’m writing this, I’m thinking, this could have been good!It isn’t. It feels like a half-hearted effort to meet a deadline. There is no suspense. There are no plot twists. There is very little resolution. It is impossible to care about any of the characters. Even the setting is off. The story is set in a fictional island near Jacksonville, yet it does not have any of the charm of that area. It reads more like a mash-up of Miami and Cape Cod.Even with its odd beachy juxtaposition of a seaside Ritz Carlton and nearby nesting turtles, it is not worth adding to any list of beach reads.

⭐ Normally enjoy Grisham’s work but this was a big disappointment. The plot was incredibly silly. When I reached the end, all I could think was – is this really all there is to this? Young promising writer gets enticed into a high level sting to find stolen original Fitzgerald manuscripts. Elaine – the recruiter and the recruitment were completely unbelievable. So the FBI and this high powered investigation firm are watching every aspect of Bruce’s life including shipments in and out of his shop and they don’t think to look at the shipments out of his wife’s shop which is connected by a basement door to Bruce’s shop? Sheesh, somebody’s face must be red. None of the characters were believable. Silly plot, stilted characters…my advice is to skip this round of Grisham. It is a waste of time.PS – And what the heck was the whole Denny side story about? He sold the manuscripts and then what – he was going to steal them back? Who knows and, more importantly, who cares?

⭐ This might not be my favorite Grisham novel, but there’s still plenty to like when it’s Grisham writing the story. Set on an island in Florida, centered around a small bookstore with a national reputation, this is the story of Mercer, a thirty-something writer with writer’s block who’s just been let go from her college teaching job because of budget cuts. She’s approached by a woman who works for the insurance company who is on the hook for 25 million dollars after five, handwritten manuscripts, by Fitzgerald, were stolen from Princeton and are suspected to be on the black market soon to disappear into the murky world of black market collectors. Mercer is hired to ingratiate herself into Bruce Cable, the owner of the bookstore on the island, because it’s rumored that he has the manuscripts. Mercer spent summers on the island with her grandmother, so she has a logical ‘in’ and will not be suspected as a spy.Okay, first the good parts of the book, starting with Grisham’s always readable prose, interesting plots, and just plain good story-telling skills. I always finish any of his books I’ve started and have read everything he’s written, so for me, Grisham has a good track-record. This story kept me entertained throughout, and the ending was wonderful.Now for the not-so-good parts of the book, I won’t say bad, because Grisham probably couldn’t write a bad book if he tried, starting with the lead character Mercer. She’s as boring as one of those perfect characters out of a pulp-fiction-romance-chic-lit novels. She’s slim and fit, with no visible means of exercise which at 31 does NOT happen, she wrote one wonderful, critically acclaimed first novel and then quit her tour because no one came to the first two signings(so what? You were supported by a real publisher, something most writers only dream of, stop being a baby and get out there and do the work), she gets paid and sleeps with someone she’s ready to send to jail(no moral compass, yet she talks about her vampid sister’s obsession with material things),she whines about how her sister’s college was paid for while Mercer only got one year out of her dad before he went broke, and then says she dutifully sees him once a year and whines again about how they have nothing in common and he only talks about himself. What? Mercer is the classic example of a narcissist. I could not like her for a single second. Happily, the other characters are fresh, funny and amazing, and worth reading the book for.If you love books, which I’m assuming most people who read even this review are, this is a fun book. I loved the writers in the books, especially the lesbians who write romance novels. Perfect. And the bookstore owner should have been the main character. The thieves are boring and I almost quit the book after the first couple of chapters of those four. Boring.But in the end, this is an entertaining, well-written book that taught me something about the book world and I’m glad I read it.

⭐ The book started out promising but it failed completely about 2/3rds into it. The protagonist, initially relatable and seemingly well fleshed out, proved to be really flimsy and detestabley useless. She was just there for the writer to further explore the “sort of” bad guy. She virtually disappeared in the last bit of the plot. Who was this story about? Bc it certainly wasn’t the character billed as the protagonist. The thieves who pulled off the initial heist are either dead or in jail; I didn’t mind that. What I minded was their use as a prop, and a badly used prop at that. They were there to steal the manuscripts and interject some menace here and there, but it was poorly done. Seemed a waste of potential, but that’s on the author (whoever that was) and the editor. As for the morally ambiguous opportunist who ransoms millions of dollars for the manuscripts without really taking on much of the risk? He was the one who won in the end. He was the real protagonist. I’m sure this little switcheroo would have been a mind-blowing twist 100 yrs ago. Now, it’s just tired and unsatisfactory. This whole book was unsatisfactory. Don’t waste your time.

⭐ Even a talented author like John Grisham can produce a bad book, and sadly, Camino Island was so bad I couldn’t get past Chapter Two. In attempting to develop his central character, “Mercer” (a woman), Grisham devolved into lengthy background asides which redefined the word “boring”. I began to speed-read, trying to find something where some action was taking place. The beginning pages of this effort grab your attention, when some manuscripts written by F. Scott Fitzgerald are purloined by four well-organized thieves. After a bad guy drips a few drops of blood, the bad guys are in the crosshairs and are soon out of the picture. Somehow a rare-books dealer named CABLE (his last name is ‘TV”) apparently has obtained these manuscripts and Mercer is tasked with worming her way into Cable’s orbit so she can help “ELAINE” (Seinfeld’s neighbor?) to regain them prior to the beleaguered insurance company having to fork over twenty-five million in claims money to the University from where these rare papers were stolen. OK, that’s not a horrible plot line, but the execution? MISERABLE. I feel ripped off, and cannot help but wonder if ghost writers were involved in this sad book. Luckily I purchased it digitally, and believe it, I’m squawking to Amazon about this experience. I would say look elsewhere, I am sad to say. Mr. Grisham, as they say in Spanish, “No Bueno”.

⭐ Boring and predictable. Grisham has betrayed his loyal fans with this lazy offering. The characters are underdeveloped. The only character I was halfway invested in was Tessa, the grandmother who died many years before the story begins. The storyline was thin and contrived. I had to suspend disbelief. I read the whole book out of curiosity about the ending. It was ridiculous! I laughed out loud. I had the feeling that Grisham himself was tired of the book and just wanted to end it. Awful.

⭐ A few years ago, this reader stopped reading John Grisham. Not sure why, perhaps tired of lawyer novels. At the beginning of this year, when checking to see what Grisham had recently written, it was a surprise of all the novels published since reading the last one. So, the 2016 “The Whistler” was read and this reader was blown away. What a great novel! The missing Grisham novels have now been acquired.Five bad guys pull off an incredible crime. They break in to the Firestone Library at Princeton University and steal the five original manuscripts of the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Insured for $25 million, the FBI as well as the insurance company are on the trail of the bad guys. The just completed “Camino Island”, published in 2017, is off to a great start!The FBI and the insurance company start looking into known merchants who sell and trade rare book and documents, whether legally sold or not. This brings the insurance company to the fictional Camino Island in Florida. What a great bookstore does Bruce Cable own on Camino Island. For this reader, it is the type of bookstore to which he is attracted. And Bruce is a great guy, a romantic guy. Everybody likes Bruce (including this reader).The insurance company, suspects that Bruce might be involved, and needs an inside spy, so they approach Mercer Mann, who recently lost her job teaching creative writing at Chapel Hill, due to budget restraints and by-the-way spent her summers on Camino Island at her grandmother’s cottage. Mercer is also low on funds, and high on student debt, so she accepts their generous offer to return to Camino Island and spy on Bruce.Mercer gets closer to Bruce, than she expected, and soon danger is creeping onto that small island. What a fun novel! This reader is certainly pleased to have re-discovered who is probably the best storyteller in America today!

⭐ Clearly, different people want different things from John Grisham. He has always been a great story teller, but several years ago I tired of lawyers and poorly crafted endings. So this was my first Grisham in a long time. I was pleased to find what I think is one of his best books ever.Thieves steal five priceless F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton’s library vaults with the expectation of “ransoming” them back to the University. The plan goes awry and the search for the manuscripts ultimately focuses on a Florida island town near Jacksonville. The town is home to an eclectic group of authors and a charismatic local bookseller , so in telling the story Grisham provides an interesting and informative look at the publishing industry in general. I won”t spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that the narrative is fast paced and the ending is well thought out.I really enjoyed this book. It is a well crafted page turner that is informative as well as entertaining. Recommend

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