Brilliant, unputdownable!

Many years ago I read my first Grisham, A time to kill and followed that with The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber and The Runaway Jury. I began to feel that later novels were losing the impact that those earlier thrillers so brilliantly portrayed. A Painted House proved somewhat of a disappointment and so my reading journey into the legal mind of John Grisham came to a close…...until now. By pure luck I picked up “The Reckoning” in a charity shop, liked the synopsis on the back cover and started reading, and could not stop! The Reckoning is nothing short of brilliant; it combines the qualities of a thriller with vivid courtroom scenes that Grisham is renowned for.

Pete Banning returns home to Clanton Mississippi, a war hero, a man respected and loved dearly in his community. One morning in October 1946 he rises early, drives into town, attends the local Methodist Church and shoots dead the popular Reverend Dexter Bell. He refuses to speak or comment on the killing and seems content to have a trial that will surely find him guilty and death by electrocution. The first part of the book deals with the murder followed by the trial and then the author tells the back story of Pete Manning his heroic war record, his capture, escape, and fight back against the  Japanese. In the final part we are observers to the repercussions that the murder has on Manning’s family; the children Joel and Stella and his wife Liza confined to a mental hospital. The writing is taut, the story brilliantly executed and I found it impossible to put down until completed, until the final question was answered….What happened on that October day that caused Pete Manning to act in the way he did and by doing so altered the lives and futures of so many. Welcome back Mr Grisham what a fantastic read...highly highly recommended.

Harry delivers the goods! - 4 star

This is the 10th outing for Nesbo’s brilliant yet somewhat troubled maverick detective Harry Hole. The plot is interesting, police officers are being murdered at the site of crimes they failed to solve in the distant past and Oslo’s finest are frankly clueless as to how to approach the case, never mind solve it. Harry, banished to the academic world of lecturing, has his own troubles in the form of a fanatical student Silje Gravseng stalking our hero, and fighting his own demons in the form of alcohol. I enjoy the writing style of Jo Nesbo, a true exponent of scandi noir, but the problem I have with this book is our hero does not actually enter the story until 200 pages in. Up to this point a twisted brutal killer is leading the local Oslo police on a merry dance! But very soon the good citizens of Oslo can once again rest easy as within a very short time Harry is putting the pieces of the jigsaw together and they know with confidence that the perpetrator of these evil acts will soon be held accountable. The troubled relationship between Harry and Rakel reaches an unexpected but pleasing conclusion. I love Jo Nesbo’s writing and even if our antihero is not present for the first 3rd of the novel “Police” is still an excellent read and a great addition to the series.