Just Finished Reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman & The Racketeer by John Grisham

Seeing how Neil Gaiman and John Grisham have become two of my favorite authors, it's not surprising that I'd read a couple more of their books, finishing them at the same time...

Gaiman's 2008 young adult novel The Graveyard Book, as you might infer from its title, has some pretty sinister overtones to it: in the opening scene at a rural English town, an assassin with a knife kills an infant's parents and sister at night in their house.  Turning to his room, the evil Man Jack discovers the baby's crib to be empty...he's crawled away and is heading to the nearby graveyard.  There the Owens take him in and hide him from the murderer...only problem is that they're ghosts!  The community of ghosts haunting that place decide to bring up young Nobody Owens, as he is renamed, under the Owens' care.  A protective and reformed vampire named Silas brings in food and supplies from the outside world...and sets out to combat the terrible organization that sent the Man Jack to perform his dastardly deed.  The story introduces some very memorable characters as Bod (short for Nobody) grows up there, and it builds up the suspense very well...I'll let you, the potential reader of this relatively short book, read it for yourself to see what happens.  I liked it, although for some reason my mind kept playing the old song Monster Mash in the background while I was reading it...

John Grisham's The Racketeer came out in 2012 and is initially set in Virginia where a young African American lawyer, innocent of any crime, is nevertheless swept away by the Feds in a vast racketeering case, convicted, and sentenced to federal prison for ten years...effectively ruining his marriage and professional life.  But Malcom Bannister has a card up his sleeve he can play, and does: Rule 35, which allows for a convict to get out of jail free if he or she can successfully solve another crime for the FBI. He names a supposedly good friend of his he earlier met in prison, Quinn Rucker, as the recent murderer of a corrupt judge and the suspect is arrested and indicted.  Bannister gets put under the witness protection program and has his name and appearance changed, but Rucker's vengeful friends seem to able to track him anyway.  At this point in the story, Bannister's behavior struck me as being both abhorrently calloused and careless, and I began to lose interest in finishing it.  Which goes to show that with a good author like John Grisham you never know what tricks he has in store for the reader, as The Racketeer's ending explained it all and put an entirely different perspective on Bannister, Rucker and their respective plights.  Turns out this was one of Grisham's best stories!

Sometimes I get into the bad habit of reading several novels at the same time, and that's going on right now.  I'm finishing up Elizabeth Peters' archaeology mystery A River in the Sky and Joe Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings.  I've also begun The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.  And, of course, I'm reading through old science fiction short stories as well.  With so much on my plate, I'd better get back to the books...