Monthly Archives: March 2016

03.26.16
by

ROGUE LAWYER/PURE ENJOYMENT/CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

It took only three sittings to race through John Grisham’s latest novel Rogue Lawyer.  I wasn’t in a particular rush but like so much of his work it was hard to put down. I especially liked Rogue Lawyer because it added a few edgy contemporary issues.

imgres-2

” A lawyer like me is forced to work in the shadows. My opponents are protected by badges, uniforms, and all the myriad trappings of government power. They are a sworn and duty-bound to uphold the law, but since they cheat like hell it forces me to cheat even more.”

The story of the middle of the night police invasion of a private home is frightening and carries a familiar ring of cable news.   Your mind may chill with images of  surplus Army tanks, Kevlar and night vision goggles on the streets of local communities. The book has a menu other cases, characters and  clients.

John Grisham’s Rogue Lawyer is indeed a good read. For other great Grisham novels search gordonsgoodreads.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

03.26.16
by

THE WITCHES- SALEM 1692. NON FICTION? YOUR CALL

Stacy Schiff’s The Witches, Salem 1692 is a work of non fiction by the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian.

images

 

For the reader, the vivid descriptions of the Salem Witch Trials is difficult to separate from a historical novel. The task for Schiff was to work from difficult to discover and even harder to discern documentation of what actually occurred during that bitter-cold winter of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts.

Like several readers I spoke with, some of whom gave up early with these pages, I found it difficult to keep engaged with the flow of the story.  The book is certainly a statement of the times and the confluence of strident religious beliefs, hard living on the first American frontier and plenty of hard cider fueling wild imagination.

The Witches is a must read for students of  witchcraft and for understanding the period and a very strange social order. Allow yourself plenty of time for taking  many necessary page-backs before you mount a broom yourself and fly away in frustration.

Also by Stacy Schiff: Cleopatra.