Book Review: Camino Island | John Grisham

With John Grisham’s newest thriller, Camino Ghosts, coming out later this month, it’s the perfect time to go back and read the first two books that brought us to Camino Island, Florida. This sleepy, beachside community gets a lot of action, it seems! And it all started back with Camino Island, which was published in 2017.

This is more thriller than legal thriller, but no less gripping than my other favorite John Grisham books. Camino Island proves that he can write outside of the courtroom and still maintain that wicked, crafty plotting and excellent storytelling that put him on the bestseller charts for decades!

It all starts with a heist to steal the original handwritten manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and then it escalates to a gripping game of cat and mouse. But what happens when the number of cats multiplies? Let’s get into it!

What is Camino Island about?

Princeton, NJ: The Heist.
An imposter hacks his way into the Firestone Library at Princeton, pretending to be a visiting professor. He busies himself with pretend work all day, but what he’s really interested in are the five original F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts kept in a temperature-controlled vault underneath the library. Meanwhile three other men obtain fake student IDs. When a bomb threat is called in and the campus is evacuated, the librarians return to find the five manuscripts are gone along with the men who planned and executed the heist.

Camino Island, FL: The Dealer.
Bruce Cable is a seersucker-wearing owner of a bookstore specializing in rare books. He’s built his bookstore to be a place where book collectors, writers, and book lovers can come together. Bruce loves his bookstore, but he also has become a major player in the black-market rare book world, curating his own collection and also acting as a middleman between buyers and sellers of not entirely legal merchandise. In other words, the exact type of person who may be needed for the stolen manuscripts to move.

Chapel Hill, NC: The Recruit.
Mercer Mann is a writer whose first book held literary acclaim, but who has failed to write a second. Mercer has just been laid off from her teaching position at the university. When a woman named Elaine reaches out about a well-paying teaching job, Mercer figures she will at least meet her for the free lunch. It turns out that Elaine does have a job for Mercer, but it isn’t teaching creative writing. She needs Mercer to get close to a bookseller in Camino Island and spy on him. Elaine was hired by the insurance company for the Princeton manuscripts to locate them, and they suspect Bruce Cable may know where they are (or even have them). The trouble is, they can’t get close to Bruce.

Camino Island, FL: The Search.
Mercer has the perfect excuse to get close to Bruce, though. She spent every summer growing up on Camino Island with her late Aunt, and now could use the excuse of living at her aunt’s cottage to finish her book. Bruce notoriously loves to collect writers are friends, and has cultivated a community of authors. Not long after arriving in Camino Island, Mercer meets other writers and eventually Bruce. As she grows closer to Bruce’s inner circle, she’s not the only one watching on Camino Island. Soon, Elaine, the FBI, and the thieves are circling, waiting for a moment to pounce. What really happened to those manuscripts, and can Mercer help find them?

What did I think of Camino Island?

This is a well-crafted, gripping thriller that takes the reader for a ride as the hunt gets closer to the stolen manuscripts. Camino Island is the type of book that doesn’t ask the reader to try and figure everything out, it asks the reader to buckle in and go along with Grisham as he pulls the strings together in a captivating game of cat and mouse. Camino Island is not a legal thriller, though long-time Grisham fans may recognize the appearance of the law firm Scully & Pershing at a pivotal moment to step in and help. It’s a literary thriller that feels like a gift to book lovers from Grisham, as we are the exact sort to understand how priceless those manuscripts are.

The book is structured in eight chapters that each have several subchapters within them. The first three introduce us to the three central threads that will all weave together in Camino Island: the theft of the manuscripts from Princeton (and what happened after the theft), the introduction to Bruce and how he got into the rare book space, and the recruitment of Mercer to help find out if Bruce has or knows where the manuscripts are. I loved the structure; it made the book fly by with quick pacing. There’s not a single scene that is extraneous to the story. Grisham kept the plot tight.

I found Mercer and Bruce to both be likeable characters, even knowing their flaws. Mercer has a rich backstory involving her Aunt Tessa and her summers spent on Camino Island with her. Tessa’s death feels particularly tragic, knowing what we know. I kept thinking it would turn out she wasn’t dead because she was lost at sea, but that never remotely comes up as a plotline (it’s not even hinted at). Regardless, Tessa was not only pivotal in Mercer’s life, but she’s also the reason Mercer has this opportunity to get close to Bruce. It makes sense for her to be there working on her novel, so that keeps Bruce from getting suspicious.

There are plenty of twists and turns along the way. I love a good game of cat and mouse and Grisham delivered a heck of a game in this book, and it keeps getting more complex. With the way the book is structured, each chapter brings new information and context to the broader picture. Just as I would get caught up in the storyline between Mercer and Bruce, I’d be reminded that the story is about the manuscripts, and there are more people that may want those manuscripts than the insurance company and Bruce.

The ending was unexpected but I enjoyed how the stories pulled together and what transpired at the end. There is a lot to unpack and a good twist that I didn’t see coming. The final scene was a perfect way to end it. It gave some closure but left the door open for a second book (and now a third!).

Do you need to read Camino Island to read the other books?

This is a complicated question but I’ll give the short answer first. No, you don’t need to read this book to read the others. Each is a separate story and works as a standalone. However, I think this book sets up a lot about the characters and setting of Camino Island and the community there that makes the second book much more compelling. In addition, Camino Winds spoils several things from Camino Island. You can read them in isolation, but I recommend reading them in order!

Ready for Camino Winds?