A Painted House
A gripping crime thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of mystery and suspense
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The gripping legal thriller from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author and creator of Sooley and The Judge's List.
In rural Arkansas, seven-year-old farm boy Luke Chandler lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents.
When the cotton is ready to be harvested, the Chandlers hire a group of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.
For six weeks the group pick cotton, battling the heat, rain, fatigue, and sometimes each other. During this time, Luke sees and hears things no seven-year-old should witness.
Can he keep the secrets that could threaten his family's business and change their lives forever?
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Praise for John Grisham:
'A master at the art of deft characterisation and the skilful delivery of hair-raising crescendos' Irish Independent
'John Grisham is the master of legal fiction' Jodi Picoult
'The best thriller writer alive!' Ken Follett
'John Grisham has perfected the art of cooking up convincing, fast-paced thrillers' Telegraph
'Grisham is a superb and instinctive storyteller' The Times
'Grisham's storytelling genius reminds us that when it comes to legal drama, the master is in a league of his own' Daily Record
'Masterful - when Grisham gets in the courtroom he lets rip, drawing scenes so real they're not just alive, they're pulsating' Mirror
'A giant of the thriller genre!!' TimeOut
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Who needs lawyers? Not Grisham, in his captivating new novel, now between hardcovers after serialization in the Oxford American. Here there are hardscrabble farmers instead, and dirt-poor itinerant workers and a seven-year-old boy who grows up fast in a story as rich in conflict and incident as any previous Grisham and as nuanced as his very best. It's September 1952 in rural Arkansas when young narrator Luke Chandler notes that "the hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day." These folk are in Black Oak for the annual harvest of the cotton grown on the 80 acres that the Chandlers rent. The three generations of the Chandler family treat their workers more kindly than most farmers do, including engaging in the local obsessionDplaying baseballDwith them, but serious trouble arises among the harvesters nonetheless. Most of it centers around Hank Spruill, a giant hillbilly with an equally massive temper, who one night in town beats a man dead and who throughout the book rubs up against a knife-wielding Mexican who is dating Hank's 17-year-old sister on the sly, leading to another murder. In fact, there's a mess of trouble in Luke's life, from worries about his uncle Ricky fighting in Korea to concerns about the nearby Latcher family and its illegitimate newborn baby, who may be Ricky's son. And then there are the constant fears about the weather, as much a character in this novel as any human, from the tornado that storms past the farm to the downpours that eventually flood the fields, ruining the crop and washing Luke and his family into a new life. Grisham admirers know that this author's writing has evolved with nearly every book, from the simple mechanics that made The Firm click to the manifestations of grace that made The Testament such a fine novel of spiritual reckoning. The mechanics are still visible hereDas a nosy, spying boy, Luke serves as a nearly omnipresent eye to spur the novel along its courseDbut so, too, are characters that no reader will forget, prose as clean and strong as any Grisham has yet laid down and a drop-dead evocation of a time and place that mark this novel as a classic slice of Americana.
Customer Reviews
A painted house
A terrific and well written story keeping you engaged at all times. Morally sound and a great tale of the hardships and community life in the earl 50's in America. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Painted House
Cracking book couldn't put it down! Wonderfully written , great drama and many twists. One if his best if not the best!