It hurts me to write a review like I am about to because I am perhaps the biggest John Grisham fan ever to walk this planet. Any form of criticism of him or his work feels like disloyalty- betrayal even.This is is worst book by some margin.
The story is about a major-league NFL star who can no longer play in the NFL after an embarrassing match and is ‘forced’ to play in Italy where the football league is almost unknown to the rest of the world- even to the locals. Rick, (the uncolourful main character), learns all about teamwork, romance yackety yak while in Parma, Italy, and to tell you more of the story would be to uncover basically nothing of a pretty weak story line.
The most disappointing part of the book for me was the failure to develop the characters in the book. Perhaps there were just too many Italian names being thrown about but I struggled to remember who was who, even on the last page of the book. The characters were names, not people. I have always really enjoyed Grisham’s ability to make his characters come alive. I always find myself making friends in the pages of his books but even Rick was just a name.
Grisham is still my hero, but this was just a disappointing read. I’m about to start reading ‘The Innocent Man’ now and I’m sure my confidence in Grisham will be refreshingly restored.
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