Ford County by John Grisham

Yes, I realize it is now January 1st, which means it's 2010, but since all but the last 20 pages of this book were read in 2009, it's counting for last year's total.

I used to be a huge John Grisham fan. A Time to Kill remains one of my all-time favorite novels. However, lately I've been disappointed with his writing. In my opinion, The Runaway Jury was the last good novel he's written. His last two full-length novels aren't nearly as good as his older works (The Associate seemed more like a bad re-write of The Firm, which I also loved). I had high hopes for Ford County, Grisham's recent book of short stories, as the stories take place in and around Clanton, Mississippi (the setting of A Time to Kill) I hoped he would return to his roots. Sadly, I was mostly disappointed with this book as well.

Ford County is a collection of 7 short stories, all very different from each other. In "Fish Files" we see Harry Rex, first introduced in A Time to Kill, and that's the only time any already familiar characters show up.

The only story in this collection that I really even liked at all was "Fetching Raymond," the second story in the book. In this story two brothers and their mother travel to see their third brother one last time before his execution. The look at this family on their way to such a tragic event, and the normalcy they maintained made the story compelling, but it was the only one to be so. I had a hard time staying interested in the rest of the stories.

If you're a die-hard Grisham fan, then you might as well give this book a try. If you've never read anything by him then I recommend you start with the earlier novels. They're all much, much better than his more recent works.