The Reckoning

I found The Reckoning by John Grisham at the used book store.  I hadn't read any Grisham for a very long time, so decided to try it.  I was disappointed. Although the main story of the book was good, I thought the whole middle of the book was mostly word-fill.  That may be unjust, but I just didn't find telling so much of it was necessary.


One morning in 1946, Pete Banning woke and convinced himself that it was the day of reckoning, the day when he needed to go kill a local pastor.  Pete was a WWII vet who had fought in the Philippines and had been declared missing, then dead.  But he had survived and came back home to Mississippi and his family and cotton farm.  Shortly before the killing, he had committed his wife to a mental health facility.  After the killing, Pete would only say "I have nothing to say.".  He refused to help with his defense. He wouldn't allow his two children to come and see him.  He was sent to prison.

About 100 pages in the middle of the book are spent on recounting Pete's time in the Philippines.  I didn't find all that filling was needed for the story, and it bogged me down reading it. 

By the end of the book, Pete's son was in law school when he decided to learn as much as he could about why his father had killed the pastor.  And finally, after much searching, answers were found.  It's a rather unsettling ending, both for the characters in the book and for the reader.

So, all in all, I liked the book, but it's not a keeper for me.