Book Review: Camino Ghosts | John Grisham

John Grisham takes us back to the beachy shores of Camino Island off the coast of Florida and Bruce Cable’s famous Bay Books bookshop. If you are new to the Camino Island books, I highly recommend all three! You can read them out of order but you may find some spoilers for previous books.

These books are more beachy-thriller than legal thriller. In Camino Island, Mercer is recruited to get close to Bruce and hopefully find clues to where five rare, stolen manuscripts may be. In Camino Winds, a hurricane hits the island and a writer is found murdered, with clues to a conspiracy he uncovered in his unpublished manuscript.

This series is Grisham committing to prove he can write a great thriller outside of a courtroom. He was successful in the first two books, but not so much in Camino Ghosts. I didn’t mind because he’s the king of the legal thriller for a reason! This is a captivating story with some old favorite characters and some new ones. Let’s get into it!

What is Camino Ghosts about?

Author Mercer Mann is back on Camino Island for her wedding to former journalist (and former masters student) Thomas. Mercer’s sophomore novel was a smash success, but she’s struggled with what to write next. Since she found the inspiration for her last book on Camino Island and with the help of her friend (and former lover) Bruce Cable, Mercer is hoping inspiration strikes.

Bruce comes through with a brilliant idea of a local story that is developing and deserves a spotlight on the injustice. In the 1700s, a ship carrying 400 slaves from West Africa to Savannah capsized in a storm, and the people who survived landed on Dark Isle where a community of runaway slaves from Georgia had found sanctuary and welcomed them in. The survivors formed a community on the island, though over the years their numbers dwindled.

After 200 years, everyone on the island had died or moved on, leaving a young woman named Lovely Jackson as the last remaining tenant of the island. Born in 1940, Lovely and her mother were the last people on the island before they too left for the mainland, leaving Dark Isle abandoned ever since. At least, that is what Lovely claims in her self-published book, The Dark History of Dark Isle.

The state of Florida has never been interested in Dark Isle, in part because there wasn’t a way to get there. The real estate developers have had their eye on the beautiful and deserted island for several years, but couldn’t promise the revenue needed to get the state to build a bridge from the mainland.

That all changed after hurricane Leo pushed sand up into a coral reef and reconfigured the island so the very tip connects to the main beach. Now, building a bridge should be no problem and the developers already have plans to pack the small island with condos, resorts, and a large casino. Lovely is claiming rightful ownership to the island as the last remaining resident, but there is no record of her birth on the island.

Bruce convinces Mercer to meet with Lovely and read her book, which is filled with the stories of her ancestors passed down to her. She claims the island is hallowed ground and all of her relatives are buried there. She won’t consider selling, which means she needs someone to help her take on the bid developers in court. Bruce and Mercer enlist a local retired lawyer for help taking on Lovely’s case and try to prove her rightful ownership of the island.

What did I think?

I mentioned in my prior reviews that Camino Winds had a very different type of story than Camino Island, though they are set in the same place and involve the same central characters. Once again, Camino Ghosts is an entirely fresh direction for the series, though still bringing the charming characters and setting we grew to love.

Bruce and Mercer have substantial roles in this book, but they aren’t the main characters. Peppered throughout the book are excerpts from Lovely’s book where she tells the stories of her ancestors. The stories are powerful, disturbing, and sad. Slaves were treated like they aren’t human (not that this is a new take) and those experiences are documented in the book. Lovely’s great-grandmother several times over was a woman named Nalla who was nineteen when her happy life was taken from her. Eventually, Nalla puts a curse on the white men responsible for the torture and enslavement of her people, and the island is protected from then on.

The story of the curse is dark, powerful, and entrancing. Throughout the book the rumors of the curse and how it effects those who aren’t native to the community that settled there lurk around the narrative. The sections featuring Lovely Jackson and her stories are the standout stars of the story. This was more emotional than what I’m used to from Grisham, and prove once again his diversity as a writer.

Intricate plotting, compelling characters, and a mystery that tugs on your heartstrings lie at the center of this novel. There are a team of brilliant and determined people helping Lovely with her case, but it’s clear from the beginning that this may be an uphill battle in the courtroom. Lovely isn’t always certain of dates, which is called out by the opposing council any time a date differs in her testimony from what is in her book.

It doesn’t help that slaves were largely undocumented, as were the births and deaths of those on the island. Lovely’s book is actually the sole record of what happened to the people on Dark Isle. Eventually, the group returns to Dark Isle to obtain evidence that will hopefully corroborate Lovely’s story. Lovely is an outstanding character. She’s determined to go to court if needed because she refuses to sell the island to the developers no matter what they offer her.

Mercer is intimidated to tell her story, in part because it’s important it is done justice. Mercer also isn’t a nonfiction writer, and she doesn’t want her book to come across as a retelling of Lovely’s own book (which only sold about 30 copies total, and those are only because of Bruce). Bruce is there as a friend supporting Mercer and pushing her out of her comfort zone. If you’ve read the first two books, you’ll enjoy seeing how far their friendship has come since they met years earlier when she was hired to spy on him.

How is the audiobook?

Final Thoughts

Longtime fans of the Camino Island books will love Camino Ghosts. Those who haven’t read the prior books will find this to be a gripping story, though they may miss out on some of the fun of seeing Bruce and Mercer back together again in a different place than where they started. The setting of Camino Island always delights, though this book spent much less time at Bay Books and around the writing community of Camino Island than the prior books did. The story is woven together perfectly and the ending is emotional and lovely (pun not intended).

This is perhaps the most elegant of Grisham’s books to date. I enjoy seeing him branch out stylistically, and this is another gripping story of the scrappy underdogs taking on the villainous conglomerate.

Thank you to Doubleday Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.