Nerd Girl Loves Books

I wanted to like this contemporary mystery/thriller more, but it fell a bit flat for me. I liked the main character, detective Elise King, who is on medical leave as she battles cancer. She spends her day watching tensions rise between the local small town residents and the weekenders that invade the town each weekend. During a musical festival two teenagers suffer a drug overdose and are hospitalized and one well-liked elderly man disappears. Elise discovers his body a couple days later and she finds herself suddenly brought back to work and in charge of the investigation.

This is a collection of three short stories by Grisham that don’t have anything in common other than the law. I enjoyed the first story, “Homecoming”, the best because we once again visit Ford County and Jake Brigance. It’s not the courtroom thriller we are typically treated to in this setting, but it was great to read about the familiar characters that I’ve come to love. This time Jake is helping an attorney from Clanton, Mack Stafford, that notoriously, and allegedly, stole client money, left his unhappy marriage and children, and fled to parts unknown, never to be heard from again. Hearing that his ex-wife is dying, Mack returns to apologize and try to form a relationship with his daughters. The story is heartbreaking and uplifting and will make you yearn for more stories from Ford County.