Camino Island

 Camino Island by John Grisham

Just as I was finishing this one, I discovered it's the first in a series of three. I have got to start checking for that before I read; I've been caught too many times by a story that doesn't resolve because it continues in later books. I don't read series as a rule, or crime stories for that matter, but I saw this was about the theft of F. Scott Fitzgerald's original manuscripts and I couldn't resist.

It opens with the thieves locating the manuscripts in the library and some of them managing to escape, then shifts to a different scenario all together. 23 year old Bruce Cable, whose father has died leaving him only a portion of the money to which he believes himself entitled, quietly helps himself to a few rare books from his father's library and sets out to find a place to open a bookshop. 

Eventually he settles on Camino Island, where it happens that Mercer Mann's family has a cottage. Mercer, struggling to write a second novel after her first reasonably successful one, is trying to stay on top of her student loans by teaching high school students. She is approached by a stranger who works for a "company that specializes in security and investigations. An established company that you've never heard of because we don't advertise, don't have a website." 

They know about her property on Camino Island and would like her to stay there and get to know Bruce and his bookshop. Now, years after the theft, they suspect the stolen manuscripts are being hidden somewhere in Bruce's shop. In return for any information she can provide they will pay off her student loans, an offer she doesn't much like but cannot afford to turn down.

Grisham writes a good story - no news there. The plot is original (to me anyway, not having read much in this genre) and moves along at a fair pace. It's lighter in tone and therefore more fun than I expected from a crime story. The characters are interesting if not particularly deep, which I shouldn't expect in a plot-driven story anyway. Lots of talk about books, authors, bookshops and libraries - catnip for some of us.

I got quite caught up in the story, but am I'm interested enough to keep going through the next two books in the series.....maybe not, or maybe. Time will tell.