The Exchange: After the Firm, is John Grisham’s latest novel. Other than containing the characters Mitch and Abby McDeere from The Firm, in no way is it a sequel, notwithstanding the reviewers and jacket blurbs saying so. Years after The Firm. Mitch has improbably become an important and rich Manhattan lawyer in an international firm while somehow keeping a low profile in case mobsters from his Memphis days come looking for him. A terrorist group trying to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya kidnaps a female lawyer working with Mitch on a lawsuit in Libya. For some reason, Abby, back in NYC, is chosen by the bad guys as the go-between in ransom demands. The terrorists are surveilling Mitch and Abby worldwide, which should imply some sort of planning and an elaborate and developed intelligence network. I kept waiting for it all to be tied back to the mobsters behind The Firm in Memphis, but that never happened. Mostly the novel is watching Mitch fly from city to city, eat and drink at fancy locales, and ask rich people to ante up to the ransom fund. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. The reviews are mixed. Here’s a collection of reviews from Bookmarks:

The Boys from Biloxi is John Grisham’s latest. The story is set on the coast of Mississippi, where corruption, gambling, and prostitution reign in a battle between good and evil, or rather, between the D.A. Jesse Rudy and mob boss Lance Malco. Theoretically, the book is about their sons, Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco, who eventually step into the shoes of their fathers and continue the fight but, for me, both boys were dim versions of the better-developed characters of their fathers. Unfortunately, the story of the fathers doesn’t really get going until 200 pages in. There’s a lot of anecdotal stories in the beginning of the book that don’t really contribute much but in themselves are entertaining. However, the part of the book I liked was good enough that I’m glad I kept going. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/boys-biloxi/?utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=&utm_campaign=&utm_source=adwords&hsa_tgt=&hsa_mt=&hsa_grp=&hsa_kw=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_cam=19543378050&hsa_ver=3&hsa_acc=6163958527&hsa_net=adwords&gclid=CjwKCAiAoL6eBhA3EiwAXDom5h_0juU7U3FXNLD7m3VRY2qx-7Go4oKs8cBcbtmfMLD6Za3FFZwzGBoCaIUQAvD_BwE

Later is Stephen King’s latest novel. The protagonist, Jamie, is a kid who sees dead people and can converse with them. This skill occasionally allows him to do good deeds but also can be a skill others want to exploit. I won’t describe the plot, because how it unfolds is one of the attractions of the story. Jamie is a likeable character from the get-go and his mom, the main supporting character, is sympathetic. The descriptions of the ghosts and the paranormal activity is good. As always with King, the ordinary details of life, both kid life and adult life, are reported in the way ordinary human beings experience them, and the book isn’t really about horror, it’s about people. Later is an enjoyable and easy-to-read tale. Here’s what The New York Times says:

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.n8lSKAyjOwD0nPflFhYpEgHaE7?w=283&h=188&c=7&o=5&pid=1.7

Sooley by John Grisham is a novel about the joy of basketball, the pipeline to the NBA, the reality of civil wars in Sudan, and admirable do-gooders and despicable bad-doers in all three venues. Sooley is a kid on the dirt basketball courts in South Sudan with a four foot vertical leap and a shot that can’t hit the broad side of the barn. However, he works hard, gets better, and gets a chance to play ball in the USA for a small college. Contemporaneous with leaving Sudan, his family’s village is raided by bad guys, his sister is taken hostage, and the rest of his family become refugees. I don’t want to reveal the plot but it proceeds mostly like you might guess, except for the ending.

When I was in elementary school, I read a series of books about a sports hero named Chip Hilton, who played baseball (pitcher), football (quarterback), and basketball (guard). The last third of Sooley, which chronicles the NCAA run Sooley’s team makes, in the NCAA, reminded me a lot of those Chip Hilton books. My problem was with the first two-thirds of the book. While there was a lot of interesting information about civil war in Sudan and about the world of basketball, I would have liked more conflict and plot in the first half of the book.

Reviews are mixed. The book has high ratings on Goodreads but Publisher’s Weekly says “Grisham shoots an airball in this sappy novel.” Similarly, here’s what Kirkus Reviews says

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/sooley/

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/time-mercy/