This novel centres around Bruce Cable and his bookstore Bay Books. Bruce lives in Camino Island, Florida, and is in charge of the local author celebrities that visit the place. His bookstore is considered one of the best in the country where authors from everywhere want to be featured and included to stop in their book tours.
The book takes off when Mercer Mann returns to town ahead of Hurricane Leo. She is making a stop at Bay Books to sign autographs and do a reading of Tessa. It's the best-selling novel Mercer based on her grandmother. The day before, she arrives with her new boyfriend, Thomas, who is also one of her students. Bruce wines and dines them like he does every author, holding a dinner party at his house for them. Bruce’s wife, Noelle, is in France with her boyfriend, leaving Bruce with instructions on how to set the table. The night is filled with fun, drinking, and gossip.
Little does anyone know that Hurricane Leo is heading straight for the island. With it hitting just below a Category 5, Bruce stays and hunkers down with Nick Sutton, a college student who works for him. The storm is devastating. What makes it worse is their friend and author, Nelson Kerr, dies during the hurricane.
Bob Cobb, another author, lives nearby and goes with Bruce and Nick to the scene. Nick, however, decides it wasn’t an accident. Why would Nelson go outside during a Category 4 hurricane?
That question propels the plot of the book as Bruce, Bob, and Nick give their testimonies to the police about the suspicious stains they saw on a wall. However, this death happened during a deadly hurricane, and amid the devastation, it’s hard to get the proper equipment to the scene of the crime to prove their theory.
Bruce, Bob, and Nick then start to wonder if Nelson’s death has anything to do with his latest book in which no one has ever read. Does his new novel have anything to do with why he’s killed?
Or did he really just go outside to chase his dog and get hit in the head by a branch?
The novel is a fast read with a lot of intrigue. The characters are well-rounded, fun, and just your typical group of authors. Grisham does a great job giving each character a unique personality.
The mystery in this novel is pitch-perfect too. The readers will never see the ending coming or figure out what really happened to Nelson.
Bruce is perhaps Grisham’s least sympathetic hero; he drinks night and day, sleeps around, and has few apparent scruples. At least he’s not a lawyer. Neither is he a cop, though he’s quicker on the scene than the island’s homicide investigator, since murder is rare in these parts. That leaves it to him, an intern, a girlfriend, and assorted other players to piece together what happened to the unfortunate Mr Kerr, who, it must be said, is dispatched in a way nicely in keeping with Floridian lifestyles.
Grisham’s tale unfolds at a leisurely pace, never breaking into a sweat, and if the bad guys seem a touch too familiar, the rest of the cast make a varied and believable lot, and some might even be fun to ride out a storm with, at least if they're unarmed.
A pleasure for Grisham fans and undemanding readers.