'SPARRING PARTNERS'.....GRISHAM LAYS DOWN THE LAW 3 TIMES....

 Sparring Partners by John Grisham (2022)   Something out of the ordinary for the master of legal thrillers......a triple deal, with two lengthy stories, followed by a novella......with varying degrees of accomplishment. 

              I found all three compelling and fast reads......but the first two simply fizzle out with unsatisfying non-endings. Only the novella, 'Sparring Partners' really works as a full-fledged story with a most definite conclusion.......and with a memorable cast of legal eagle vipers running afoul of the very law they practice.

               First up, "Homecoming", featuring recurring Grisham regular Jake Brigance of Ford County.  Jake comes to the aid of fellow lawyer Mack Stafford who abandoned his family and disappeared with embezzled money from an under-the-table settlement. After starting a fresh life abroad, Jake has snuck back into the U.S., hoping to make amends with his now terminally ill ex-wife and re-establishing fatherhood of his two teen daughters.  Sometimes bittersweet and sad but Grisham keeps you turning the pages with his always witty views of legal machinations.  But the "that's it?" wrap-up is weak.

               The next story "Strawberry Moon" doubles down on the heartbreak and a depiction of the slow tortuous road to capital punishment.. 29 year old Death Row inmate Cody Wallace, his pleas for clemency all exhausted, faces his final hours.  And his brutal tragic backstory reveals a short life peppered with cruel fate, bad luck and a murder conviction at 14 years old.  Even without a firing a gun, the boy received the full penalty for the home invasion murders committed by his brother when accompanying him on robbery sprees.  As the clock ticks down, Cody  interacts with a doctor, a death row guard and a pastor, approaching his legally ordered death with one poignant wish.  But as in "Homecoming" this story simply stops, leaving you wishing there'd been more.....(or at least a better written final sentence).

               The novella "Sparring Partners" serves as the grand finale and it's vintage Grisham......a darkly humored tour through a nest of legal barracudas. The law firm of Malloy & Malloy consists of two brothers, Rusty and Kirk who've spent a lifetime despising each other. Their father, the firm's founder sits in prison for scaring their mother into a fatal heart attack.....and his sons' ruinous lawyering has run the firm into dire financial jeopardy. But Dad's due to scoop up millions from a previous case settlement and Rusty and Kirk conspire to grab it for themselves......and thwart their father's payoff to the governor for a pardon. The boys enlist Diantha Bradshaw, their long suffering, unofficial third partner as a co-conspirator......and that's as much as I'll reveal so as not spoil any of the nasty fun that follows. Not a sympathetic character in sight, but Grisham makes the whole tale never less than compelling.

             Overall a mixed bag, since I couldn't help wishing the first two stories had actual endings, but all three make for entertaining reads.....and you can sense Grisham enjoyed a perverse good time with the Malloy brothers misadventures.....3 stars (***) for the entire book.

FAIRY TALE.....LORD OF THE GAME OF GRIMM THRONES....KING-SIZED.

 Fairy Tale by Stephen King (2022)

           Autumn is here and in addition to the brisk temperatures and colorful falling leaves, you know what that means.....

           A juicy jumbo book to delight, scare and thrill all of us 'constant readers' of Uncle Stevie......

            And once again, he never disappoints.

           If you remember "The Talisman", the author's epic 1984 collaboration with the late Peter Straub, prepare yourself for another plunge into an all-new, freshly imagined fantasy kingdom......and all of the harrowing, heartbreaking and at times horrific adventures found there. 

           Leave it to King to serve all this up as a twenty course meal, starting with a long, long preparatory set-up that takes up almost the first third of the book and practically functions as its own novella.

          For Constant Readers, this introduction to the main events draws upon one of the author's most familiar tropes......a youngster beginning an unlikely friendship with a decidedly eccentric senior....and thereby leading to some extraordinary happenings.....

          Hence we start out with teenager Charlie Reade, already burdened with family tragedies and troubles. He takes on a new responsibility after coming to the aid of the injured, elderly Howard Bowditch, the crusty neighborhood crank. who resides, naturally in a foreboding ramshackle house.  While Bowditch recuperates from a broken leg, Charlie becomes a caregiver to both Howard and the old man's equally aging German Shepherd, Radar. 

            Slowly but surely, man, boy and dog all warm up to each other, but where and how did Howard accumulate his Midas-sized stash of pure gold? And what's behind his locked shed and what's sometimes making  creepy, scrabbling noises on the other side of its door?

            Since we're talkin' Stephen King here, it's not a shock that the shed houses a deep, circular stone staircase leading to the mythical kingdom of 'Empis'.....an amalgamation of the worlds of 'Lord Of The Rings, 'Game Of Thrones', 'The Wizard Of Oz', H.P. Lovecraft, Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

            As you might already guess, Charlie and Radar take the plunge into Empis, discovering it's a cursed kingdom, with its benevolent people brutalized and tortured by unspeakable, monstrous forces.

             (By now, we of King's  Constant Readers know that nobody, but nobody creates more vile, hateful, disgusting villains and monsters than our favorite author. Trust me, you'll want to leap into the pages of 'Fairy Tale' and strangle them yourselves with your bare hands.....)

              I couldn't even begin to describe the all the characters, creatures. breathless travels, terrifying perils and heroics that unfold here. That's stuff's for you to dive into and stay up all night reading about.  Shouldn't even bother mentioning that by the closing chapters, King will make your heart both break and soar, as you knew he would......

              Nothing much else I can add here, except the Sandy Quill rating....(also no surprise)....5 stars (*****). 

               (I can only hope and pray that when some streaming service gets around to turning 'Fairy Tale' into a mini-series, it's one I already subscribe to......otherwise I'll just have to join up with whoever's putting it on.....)

             

           

              

             

SHE CAME FROM BEYOND, THE REGIONAL OFFICE IS UNDER ATTACK!, A HUNDRED THOUSAND WORLDS......NOVELISTS TAKE A NOVEL GAZE AT SUPERHEROES, FANBOYS AND FANGIRLS

LET HIM GO.... A KINDLY COUPLE TAKE ON .BADASSES IN THE BADLANDS (*****)

 Let Him Go by Larry Watson (2013)     Would've missed this altogether if I hadn't caught the news that Kevin Costner and Diane Lane starred  in an unheralded, little seen film version.........

                    And what a beautifully crafted little gut-punch of a book this is.........

                    An irresistible plot:  In 1951 North Dakota, an elderly couple, George and Margaret Blackledge, still grieve over the accidental death of their son, thrown from a horse. The son left behind a young wife, Lorna and little Jimmy, George and Margaret's beloved 4 year old grandson.

                    But their daughter-in-law, a weak-willed airhead, quickly found a new husband in the worthless, abusive Donnie Weboy........and Donnie's taken his new wife and stepson to live with his fierce, fearsome Weboy family clan in the Montana badlands.

                     Mean-spirited and violent, the Weboys are straight out of a horror movie.........but force-of-nature Margaret, with a weary, wary George in tow, travels to Montana in the wild hope of somehow retrieving and rescuing her only grandson from the clutches of this dangerous collection of creeps.

                     The vile, vengeful Weboys, true to their nature, make George and Margaret suffer dearly for their quest........but between these two polar opposite families, the flawed but loving Blackledges and the evil Weboys, , there's a final reckoning still to come......

                    And that's as far as I go with the plot (way more than I usually give out in a book review).......except to say that story's conclusion will shatter you in all sorts of ways......

                    Watson's prose manages to be both spare, incisive and luminous.......and you'll never find a more painful, humorous and truer portrait  of a lifelong marriage in his creation of George and Margaret Blackledge. (Finish the book and you'll see why Costner and Lane leaped at a chance to film it....)

                    SQ strongly recommends you, put it on your TBR list right now.....and bump it up to a high position. .  5 stars (*****)........  And beware those Weboys........