Review
Author: John Grisham
Reviewed by: William Lilley, III
Issue: September 2017
Only rarely does a mystery end as well as it begins. Such is John Grisham's Camino Island. The plot is nothing short of brilliant. I think Camino Island is better than The Firm and Pelican Brief, my two favorites of Grisham's previous eight best sellers. The beginning of Camino Island is so good that the reader cheers along the audacious scheme of five sociopaths bent on an historic robbery. The thieves concoct an ingenious scheme to loot Princeton's Firestone Library of its rare book jewel, the handwritten, folio-sized manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first five novels (and that includes The Great Gatsby). Princeton takes Fitzgerald's manuscripts very seriously. After all, the two alumni most identified with Princeton are Woodrow Wilson and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The manuscripts are insured for the allowed maximum, $25 million, a hefty sum but still less than their black-market value. The Fitzgerald heist is the book's beginning. The planning stage is an ingenious and complex exercise that peals back layer after layer of protection against breaching a double-door vault in the library's sub-basement and disabling a state-of-the art, humidified safe containing the five, large-size folios. The thieves also outsmarted the perimeter defenses - the campus police and the city police--who were duped into misreading the successive waves of explosions and smoke. As the town of Princeton was put into full lockdown, a white van (with Princeton Printing stenciled on its sides), cruised into the northern suburbs of Philadelphia, forty-five miles south of Princeton. Fitzgerald's manuscripts were headed for the dark side of the rare book trade. Grisham conducts a very professional chase of the manuscripts. Part of the action is with the FBI's art and rarities division, highly skilled in the booming trade of stolen rare books. But the heavy lifting is done by the insurance company on the hook for $25 million. The company's rare book "finder" is a sleek, business-hardened woman made rich by her recovery success fees. She is expert in knowing which bookdealers "fence" which stolen books. Number one on the list is the country's most successful independent bookstore. It is on Camino Island, a small barrier reef island off the coast of Jacksonville (FL). The bookstore is a story into itself, always the main object of island gossip. Once a small, threadbare operation, it was bought by a young man who had inherited a large box of first edition novels. From those first editions, the owner remade the business and himself. He went from being the island's book nerd to a professorial-looking entrepreneur who wore every day a different-colored seersucker suit, a natty bowtie, and loafers with no socks. He gave book-signing parties for female authors of new novels and he seduced the authors. He also made the business very successful. He became target #1 for the insurance company and the FBI, even though he had withstood numerous investigations. The "finder" decides that the insurance company needs a spy to infiltrate the suspect bookstore. The spy is a wonderful part of the book. The recovery agent seizes on the bookseller's weakness for female authors as the best way into the store. The finder recruits a good-looking woman just denied tenure at a university's creative writing department. She is perfect for the spy mission. She is a writer with one novel in her wake but nothing lying ahead. Also, she is the heir to a Camino beach cottage where she spent her youth. Once on island, the spy and the bookseller become lovers. The insurance company and the FBI believe the bookseller is ready for the taking. It is not to be. Grisham's ending is more like the start of a new mystery, leaving no scores settled.