John Grisham, king of the legal thriller, has topped bestseller charts more often than we can remember.
John Grisham, king of the legal thriller, has topped bestseller charts more often than we can remember.
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But this time, he has his eye on a new target group of readers young adults. And so we are introduced to 13 year-old Theodore Boone, the hero who this novel is named after.
Boone is the son of two successful lawyers and spends a lot of time hanging around the Strattenburg courts.
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He is friends with the court clerks and judges; he loves reading daily legal reports. He is already an expert on legal matters and offers generous advice to his classmates and teachers.
Then comes along a murder trial, the most sensational one in the small town's history.
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Peter Duffy, a high-profile resident of the town is on trial for murdering his wife, and Boone gets word from a secret witness that Duffy's alibi is fake. And the plot thickens.
Grisham is a pro at hooking readers and making sure they keep turning the pages. He doesn't disappoint in that department.
Crisp writing and twists that raise the curiosity quotient make for interesting reading. Boone becomes a flesh and blood character because he faces dilemmas that are not just of the legal variety.
He has crushes on pretty classmates but is too nervous to confess; he finds homework a pain. That makes him a pretty ordinary teenager, and a character that young readers will relate to.
But this novel is nothing like The Firm or The Rainmaker. The plot is often watered down, and the dialogue is embarrassingly flat.
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It is an interesting read, but it is not meant to take anyone's breath away. Let's hope Grisham won't neglect his adult readers because he casts a more gripping spell writing for adult fans of the thriller genre.
Published by: Hachette for: Rs 199
At: all leading bookstores
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