#18 - Sycamore Row by John Grisham

Sycamore Row was my office book club pick for the month of April.  I had heard that this was a follow up novel to "A Time to Kill" which featured some of my favorite characters of the John Grisham set of novels so I was cautiously optimistic starting this book.

I'm glad I was cautious.  This is by no means a "sequel" to the first book but it is a continuation of the characters.  Grisham does a good job of making everything fit since the end of the "A Time to Kill" (i.e. living in a rental house since theirs burned, etc). This story, however is completely different than the compelling story of the Carl Lee Haley case.

While I enjoyed it on the whole, when it boils down to it, this is 466 pages of trying to make a will case seem really action packed and interesting. In the end, it didn't quite work for me.  Without giving away any important plot points, the motivation of the main character's actions in creating his hand written will really didn't ring true to me.  I would have much rather happened that there was a twist in the end that would have tied things up better.  Either Simeon or Lettie should have been involved with the plot more closely in my not so humble opinion.  But I'm not a bestselling author so take that for what its worth ;)

Goodreads rating: 3 stars

Date read: April 9, 2014