I was a little disappointed with "The Last Juror" by John Grisham. The writing was fine, the story was pretty good, but the book was simply too short.

I woke up Saturday at 6:00 pm, watched a movie, baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and sat down with my book. I had gotten through about 40 pages on my break on the Saturday graveyard, and before nodding off to sleep when I got home. After I started reading at 8:00 pm or so, I read off and on for two hours, while checking my email, baking cookies, and looking for a decent movie on TV. When I finally realized the book was my best option, I got to the task at hand and was finished by about 5 a.m.

So, the book was good enough to effectively read the whole thing in one sitting, but it also seemed pretty short... and unfortunately a bit formulaic. However, I will undoubtably turn to Grisham again the next time I need a paperback.

Now for the review. Like most Grisham novels, The Last Juror involves a young man living in the south, fighting for justice. The protagonist, Willie Traynor owns The Clanton Times. Implementing a hard charging journalism, Traynor reports the gritty crimes of Danny Padgitt, meets many townfolk, and visits every church in the county. At times funny, at times heart-touching, the book is always enjoyable, if not a bit formulaic.

Torben Reviews: 3 stars out of 5.

I am currently reading The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille. Aside from the fact that it's a book for mature audiences, I recommend this book. 4 Stars out of 5.

On the first page after the cover, I was greeted with the following teaser: "Fascinating... The Great Gatsby meets the Godfather." - David Morrell, author of The Fifth Profession.

If you were trying to sum up this book in a sentence, I'm not sure you could do it more succinctly. The basic premise of the book is that John Sutter, a descendent of Walt Whitman, and a blue-blood wasp lives on Long Island's Gold Coast. Life is fine until Mafioso Frank Bellarosa moves into the mansion next door. Soon enough, Sutter the Wall Street lawyer is battling the IRS on tax fraud charges while learning the ropes as a defense attorney.

The book, Royal Panoply: Brief Lives of the English Monarchs by Carolly Erickson is a satisfying historical biography of Britain. While I'm sure it wouldn't assuage English Monarch buffs, the book is a perfect entry point for the uninitiated. After watching a few movies on the Queens Elizabeth and the Showtime Series: The Tudors, I figured it was worth my time to learn just how far history had been stretched, and so I took the plunge into the wonderfully interesting world of British Monarchs.

While the history of England is quite interesting, Royal Panoply is stuck in no-man's-land. At times too lengthy, and at times horrifically short on details, the book left me bored at times... but also still curious. However, if you remember that it's only a survey of the monarchs, then you'll get what you paid for.

Each monarch, from William the Conqueror through Elizabeth II, gets about ten pages. This equal treatment seems out of sorts when you consider some monarchs reigned a few years, and others a few decades. At the frays of each reign, the author tends to repeat facts as the book is intended as a stand-alone reference for each monarch, but do not fear to read it straight through, the repetition is not too often, and the point of view generally changes.

For someone interested in learning about English history and the monarchy, this is a very good first step. I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars. Oh, you'll need a dictionary, too. Any author who sticks 'Panoply' in their title isn't going to go easy on the vocabulary-challenged.

The Charm School by Nelson DeMille is an excellent, intense, delightful spy novel. Set in the early '80s, a young American takes a trip across Europe. Feeling adventurous, he ventures into the Soviet Union in his Pontiac Trans-Am, but gets lost in the woods outside of Borodino. What he finds there sets off an international incident with the capability to plunge the two superpowers back into the throes of the cold war.

DeMille masterfully employs the colorful characters of Air Force attache Sam Hollis, foreign service worker Lisa Rhodes, and CIA station chief Seth Alevy to spin a tale so intense that you will literally have to put the book down at points.

Running around 700 pages, DeMille does not let the plot get bogged down in excessive character development. Rather, the book focuses on a core of about seven characters who are explored in some depth, but the plot is pre-eminent. Teaming up, Hollis and Rhodes take several investigative trips into the Russian countryside and Moscow proper.

There are dozens of points in the book that are funny, such as the drunken Alevy and Hollis yelling into the Moscow night at their KGB counterparts, but it is otherwise very intense.

Left out of this review are explanations of the characters Major Jack Dodson, KGB Colonel Burov, and a great many other details that would spoil points of intrigue. I highly recommend this book to my more mature readers (there's some sex).

Like most DeMille books, this one contains adult content. Torben Reviews rating: 5 of 5 stars.