My grandmother and I have passed along several book recommendations to each other, sometimes lending the other books we've just finished reading. Here, I'll review a book she recently recommended to me.

"The Associate" by John Grisham is the story of Kyle McAvoy, who, against his will takes a job as an associate at a Wall Street law firm after being threatened by mysterious men who have an incriminating video of him.

I really didn't care about this book for the first 250 pages. McAvoy is accused of allowing a girl to be raped, which are really serious allegations that I don't think he should be blackmailed into avoiding. I was angry at the main character and didn't care about what trouble he might be running into -- until the mysterious men take the threat a step to far and bad things really start happening. The last 200 pages got me actually invested in McAvoy and his attempt to catch the bad guys who were trying to get him to violate his personal and professional ethics by stealing from his firm. Another major complaint I had about the book was that it took about 100 pages for McAvoy to decide he was going to do what the bad guys wanted him to -- even though that is the point of the book. Seriously, nearly 25 percent of the way through the book for the main character to decide that he is going to do what you already know he is going to do? I can't believe I kept reading after that.

Overall, Grandma, the second half was better than the first. I would have liked to hear more about McAvoy's actions to try to keep the bad guys at bay, but then again, watching the plot unfold without knowing what was going to happen was all right, too.


-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com

My grandmother and I have passed along several book recommendations to each other, sometimes lending the other books we've just finished reading. Here, I'll review a book she recently recommended to me.


"All That Remains: a Scarpetta Novel" by Patricia Daniels Cornwell follows Dr. Kay Scarpetta as she tries to track down the person who has murdered the daughter of an up-and-coming Washingtonian and her boyfriend. Their deaths mirror those of several other couples, and Scarpetta works to link them together and figure out who is responsible for the crimes.

The action and suspense in the book kept me reading. I often made my way through 100 pages without realizing that I had been sitting still for that long. But I also found that the book occasionally seemed to drag. I take issue with romantic subplots in action stories that are seemingly put in there to entertain the women but to me are just distractions and wasted space that could be used to further the plot.

The end of the book had a plot twist ... sort of. I think it was supposed to, but it seemed to me like the idea was just thrown in without enough pages to explain why. I couldn't figure out the point of inserting the twist that late in the story, and it made me leave the book on a sort of bad note.

Overall, Grandma, this book was fine for its suspense, but I don't know if I would recommend it, nor read it again.


--Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com