Tag: Thrillers

Sparring Partners by John Grisham

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Short Stories, Thriller8 Comments

Sparring Partners Cover

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (Trade Paperback – 31 May 2022)

Series: Standalone/Short Story

Length: 306 pages

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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In the mood for more legal thriller awesomeness from the mind of legendary author John Grisham?  Then make sure to grab a copy of his new short story collection, Sparring Partners.

John Grisham is an author who needs very little introduction, especially after dominating the thriller field for over 30 years.  However, I must admit that I only recently checked out his work with the 2021 book, The Judge’s List.  The Judge’s List was an extremely captivating novel that saw a determined investigator dive into allegations that a sitting judge was also a devious serial killer.  I really enjoyed this fantastic book and it definitely convinced me that I needed to read more of Grisham’s books.  Well, I recently got the opportunity to do so when I picked up a copy of Grisham’s latest release, the short story collection Sparring Partners.

Sparring Partners is an intriguing book that contains three of Grisham’s compelling short stories.  Made up of Homecoming, Strawberry Moon and the story Sparring Partners, this collection was an awesome and fun read that will really appeal to established Grisham fans.  I personally had a great time with it, and I ended up getting through it in three short intervals, knocking off one story at a time.  All three stories are quite entertaining in their own right, and together they prove to be an excellent and awesome exploration of Grisham’s style and love of the legal thriller.

The first of these stories is Homecoming, which takes the reader back to Ford County, which has served as the fictional setting of many of Grisham’s novels.  This story follows a small group of lawyers who find themselves in a unique situation when a disgraced former colleague returns to the fold.  Homecoming starts when small-time lawyer Jake Brigance suddenly receives a letter from long-lost friend and fellow lawyer Mack Stafford.  Years ago, Mack suddenly and unexpectantly fell off the grid, taking a stack of money from his clients and vanishing to parts unknown.  Considered a legend by the local legal community, Mack left behind a wife and two kids, and no one has ever understood the reasons for his disappearance.  Now, Mack is determined to return to Ford County and wants Jake and his friend Harry Rex Vonner to help navigate the waiting legal difficulties.  But as Jake and Harry work to secure Mack’s return, some members of Ford County are less than eager to see him come back and will ensure that retribution is waiting for him if he does.

Now I must admit that the first entry in this book is probably the weakest, as Homecoming does not have the most gripping narrative of the three short stories in Sparring Partners, mainly due to its low stakes.  However, it still proves to be a very compelling and interesting narrative that sees a disgraced fugitive lawyer who went through a major mid-life crisis attempt to return to the scene of the crime.  Loaded with characters with big personalities, this proves to be a very entertaining entry, and I enjoyed the unique and character-driven narrative that it contained.  Grisham provides some intriguing insights into small-town lawyering, while also taking the time to dive into some of the more significant characters.  There is a great focus on the character of Mack, especially around why he did what he did, and I really enjoyed the moving moments that looked at the impact his actions had on his family.  However, I did think that the story, while fast paced and interesting, was a bit bland and it never really went anywhere.  Still, this was a great introduction to the sort of stories you can expect in Sparring Partners and I had a wonderful time reading it.

The next entry in Sparring Partners is the powerful and intimate story, Strawberry Moon.  Set inside a death row of a prison, Strawberry Moon follows Cody Wallace, a young inmate with only three hours left until his execution.  Waiting for his final moments while his lawyer tries and fails to save him, Cody reminisces on his life and the poor choices, tragedies, and an unfair system that led him there.  But as the last minutes of his life tick away before him, Cody has just one request to the guards around him, one that will make all the difference in the world to him.

Strawberry Moon was the most powerful and heartbreaking of all the three stories contained within Sparring Partners and it serves as the emotional heart of the entire volume.  Grisham paints a grim and realistic picture of a young man who is about to be executed, by examining this remarkable figure’s remaining three hours.  Grisham has produced a deeply compelling and concise narrative that reader will swiftly get drawn into.  The story of Cody Wallace is beyond tragic, and the slow reveal of what he did and why he is about to die really gets to you, especially as it is interposed with scenes from his current existence and mentality, which has resulted in spending half his life in death row.  Watching Cody take pleasure in some of the little things he has as he waits to die is extremely moving, as are his final interactions with some of the more important people in his life, even if they are only passing acquaintances.  This story also serves as a rather blistering indictment of the death penalty system, and Grisham really got his point across extremely well, showing a mostly innocent person get killed for reasons outside of his control.  Easily the best of the three stories contained within Sparring Partners, I had an incredible time with Strawberry Moon, and you will get hit hard in the feels when you read this one.

The final story is the amusing and fast-paced story Sparring Partners, which shares the name of the volume.  Sparring Partners follows the unusual firm of Malloy & Malloy, a storied, family-operated law firm that is going through its greatest challenge.  With the Malloy family patriarch currently in prison for murder, the two remaining Malloy lawyers, brothers Kirk and Rusty, attempt to manage the firm in his stead.  However, the two brothers are polar opposites of each other and have very different ideas about how the firm should be run.  With their feud reaching an all-time high, the firm is in dire straits, and only their neutral colleague, Diantha Bradshaw, seems capable of saving it from ruin.  But Diantha has very different plans, and the firm of Malloy & Malloy may be in some real trouble.

This final story is a great entry as well, and it is definitely the most entertaining piece in the entire book.  Following a law firm in crisis, this was a fantastic and fun blend of legal thriller and family drama, as the entire lawyer family goes at each other trying to win.  Grisham sets the entire scenario up extremely well and shows the multiple conflicts, manipulations and twists in an awesome way.  None of the characters in this story are likeable, and it proves quite enjoyable to watch them fight and bicker throughout Sparring Partners, especially as many of them get what they deserve at the end.  While this entry did feature an extremely convoluted murder and investigation, which was a bit silly, there were a lot of good elements in Sparring Partners, and I had an awesome time getting through it.  A fantastic concluding story for this excellent book!

Overall, Sparring Partners was an interesting read to get through, and I quite enjoyed the various snapshots into Grisham’s imagination and writing style.  All three stories have some excellent merits, and while they aren’t the author’s best work they were very entertaining and compelling.  I loved the mixture of legal scenarios and interesting characters featured within this book, and Grisham’s ability to craft together a concise story even in shortform was on full display.  While Sparring Partners is very accessible to readers unfamiliar to Grisham’s previous works, this is probably best enjoyed by those fans of the author who are hankering for more of his unique stories in between books.  I had a great time reading it and it gave me some more insights into an author I am still not amazingly familiar with.

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Waiting on Wednesday – Upcoming Thrillers

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller, Waiting on Wednesday11 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy. I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. For the first Waiting on Wednesday of 2020 I look at three upcoming thrillers that I am looking forward to.

While I tend to read more historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction than anything else, over the last couple of years I have really started getting into thriller novels, as I have been lucky enough to check out several great books from the genre. In 2019 I read a number of amazing thrillers, including several military thrillers or thrillers mixed in with science fiction elements, all of which were a lot of fun to check out and containing exciting and clever adventures. As three of my favourite thrillers from last year all have sequels coming out in 2020, I thought I would take the time to check them out in a Waiting on Wednesday post.

Into the Fire.jpg

The first book that I am looking forward to is Into the Fire by Gregg Hurwitz. Into the Fire is the fifth book in Hurwitz’s excellent Orphan X series, which follows an elite former government assassin, codename Orphan X, as he helps people in desperate situations under his new alias The Nowhere Man. I read the fourth book in the series, Out of the Dark, last year, and I loved its fantastic story, which featured this skilled assassin going up against the entire Secret Service as he attempted to kill the President of the United States. His new novel also sounds pretty amazing, and I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Goodreads Synopsis:

The New York Times bestselling Orphan X returns—facing his own uncertain future and undertaking one last mission.

Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After breaking with the Program, he reinvented himself as The Nowhere Man, a figure shrouded in shadows who helps the truly desperate. But the government didn’t let go of him easily, sending their best to hunt him down and eliminate him. All of them failed. With his deadliest enemies behind him, Evan is facing a new challenge—what is he going to do now that no one is after him?

Max Merriweather is at the end of his rope. Separated from the woman he loves and barely scraping by, Max is a disappointment to everyone in his life. Then his very successful cousin Grant is brutally murdered. Two months before, Grant left Max an envelope with instructions to take it to a reporter if anything happened to him. Now the reporter is missing and Max’s apartment is ransacked. A man at the end of his rope, he calls The Nowhere Man.

With mixed feelings, Evan takes on this mission, easily finding the men who are after Max and executing a plan to keep him safe. But it isn’t as obvious as it seems—and Evan finds himself enmeshed in one of the most challenging missions of his life, one that he can’t survive on his own. With the help of Joey Morales, a genius-level hacker and the last Orphan recruited into the Program, and the brilliant, off-the-books gunsmith, Tommy Stojack, Orphan X once more heads…Into the Fire.

The Warsaw Protocol Cover.jpg

The next book I am going to look at is the 15th book in the long-running Cotton Malone series, The Warsaw Protocol. The Cotton Malone series is the main series of legendary thriller writer Steve Berry and follows the titular series protagonist, Cotton Malone, as he investigates a number of conspiracies and plots, mostly tied into secret organisations or parts of ancient history. I had the great pleasure of reading the 14th book in the series, The Malta Exchange, in early 2019, and I absolutely loved the complex and intriguing historical conspiracy it contained. Berry looks set to once again produce a captivating thriller mystery that is based on fascinating history and cool-sounding conspiracy theories with The Warsaw Protocol, as the plot of the upcoming books sounds pretty amazing. I am very much looking forward to this latest novel from Berry, especially after how much I enjoyed The Malta Exchange, and I am extremely curious to learn more about some of the conspiracies ranging around Poland, as it is a location you don’t see much of outside of World War II or Cold War novels.

Goodreads Synopsis:

One by one the seven precious relics of the Arma Christi, the weapons of Christ, are disappearing from sanctuaries across the world.

After former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone witnesses the theft of one of them, he learns from his old boss, Stephanie Nelle, that a private auction is about to be held where incriminating information on the president of Poland will be offered to the highest bidder–blackmail that both the United States and Russia want, but for vastly different reasons.

The price of admission to that auction is one of the relics, so Malone is first sent to a castle in Poland to steal the Holy Lance, a thousand-year-old spear sacred to not only Christians but to the Polish people, and then on to the auction itself. But nothing goes as planned and Malone is thrust into a bloody battle between three nations over a secret that, if exposed, could change the balance of power in Europe.

From the tranquil canals of Bruges, to the elegant rooms of Wawel Castle, to the ancient salt mines deep beneath the earth outside Krakow, Malone is caught in the middle of a deadly war–the outcome of which turns on something known as the Warsaw Protocol.

One Minute Out Cover.jpg

The final book I am going to look at is One Minute Out by Mark Greaney, which is the ninth book in Greaney’s Gray Man series. Greaney is an author whose has produced some outstanding novels which I have been really enjoying. Not only did he produce a fun and compelling addition to his long-running series with Mission Critical, but he also cowrote the excellent military thriller, Red Metal. Both of these novels were very exciting and really enjoyable reads, and Red Metal was easily one of my favourite books (and audiobooks) of 2019. As a result, I am very much looking forward to this latest offering from Greaney, and his new Gray Man novel sounds very intriguing.

Goodreads Synopsis:

While on a mission to Croatia, Court Gentry uncovers a human trafficking operation. The trail leads from the Balkans all the way back to Hollywood.

Court is determined to shut it down, but his CIA handlers have other plans. The criminal ringleader has actionable intelligence about a potentially devastating terrorist attack on the US. The CIA won’t move until they have that intel. It’s a moral balancing act with Court at the pivot point.

All three of the above novels should prove to be fantastic and incredible new additions to their respective series and I am very excited to read all of them. Each of these upcoming thrillers are out in the next month or so (Into the Fire is out in late January, the other two are out in February), so I should hopefully start getting copies of them soon. Let me know what thrillers you are excited for this year in the comments below.