Monday, December 19, 2011

Book #81

The Confession, by John Grisham. Unabridged audio.

This is an extremely predictable critique of capital punishment, presented as a novel.

The concept was solid -- an innocent man is scheduled to be executed, and only the man guilty of the crime can save him. But there was nothing unexpected in the novel -- Texans are racist, defense lawyers are heroes, politicians are corrupt, and cops are thugs.

I read a lot of Christian fiction, and the issues I have with that genre is the lack of subtlety, and the elevation of the message to the highest position. This novel suffers from those same flaws, and was even more "preachy" than some of those Christian novels.

There was very little drama here, especially in the first two-thirds of the novel. I did not become engaged until the last hundred pages.

1 comment:

  1. I've never read John Grisham. I have steered away from Christian genre in the last few years for the same reason you do. Have a merry Christmas Alan!

    ReplyDelete