Ford County

John Grisham's new collection of short stories was surprisingly good. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Grisham's legal thrillers. But his stand-alone novels, like Playing for Pizza, have been pretty weak. So I was not expecting much when I picked up this collection. I intended to read just one or two of the stories to get a feel for them, but ended up reading the entire book. Grisham returns to Clanton and Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of several of his legal thrillers. I've always enjoyed Grisham's depiction of this small southern town and its flawed, but interesting characters. There is no lack of interesting and flawed characters in this collection--from drunken rednecks attempting to donate blood to a retirement home aide ingratiating himself with the residents, the characters in these stories may not be pillars of the community, but they do have very compelling stories. Although I'm not a big fan of short stories, I found these to be very satisfying.