A small gang of thieves hatch a plan to steal five priceless manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s from the Princeton University library. Of course, they are insured but the insurance company brings the FBI’s Rare Asset Recovery Unit in to the crime. The insurance is just a starting point of 25 million, since the manuscripts are priceless. The theft part of the story itself is everything you would expect from Grisham, but it is what happens after the theft that becomes the core of this novel.
The gang is really made up of 5 small time amateurs who scatter after the robbery. By the time the FBI has captured some of them, the manuscripts have been sold for a fraction of their worth. The FBI knows that it will take a sophisticated book dealer to know the worth, to have an interest, and to have the needed connections, so they narrow those who could be that person, to a few individuals.
Bruce Cable is the sophisticated, handsome owner of a bookstore that specializes in rare books which is located on Camino Island. Mercer Mann is a young university instructor and aspiring novelist whose teaching contract has run out, and who has a mountain of student debt of her own. Elaine Shelby who is working with the insurance company and the FBI meets with Mann and offers to clear her student loan and give her a substantial amount of cash to help. Mann is young and pretty, a literature teacher, and she spent lots of time on Camino Island when she was growing up. She agrees to the plan to find out if Cable has the stolen manuscripts and she understands that it likely will involve getting intimately close to Cable. He is a smooth experienced operator not just in books but with young pretty women and their time together is a big part of this book.
This is Grisham’s 30th novel and is a departure from the legal script we usually encounter with him.
This was reviewed last September by myself at another site. I wanted to have it included here. Grishman's non legal scripts are rare. His books are always relaxing and for me a break from the normal.
A thought and question about Amazon for you. I hope you will read and consider. Is having a Amazon link of value to the reader? If a book occurs to you all you have to do is click on the link. When you do you are then working one on one with Amazon. The site gets a small credit. It doesn't cost you anything and Amazon's prices are very competitive. If you have a book here or anything you thinking of buying from Amazon the "come on" click the link and order.