Skip to main content

The Widow by John grisham

Movie reviews kooda nambidalam pola but online book reviewslam utterly unreliable. May be taste in movies is more relatable to a larger group of people as compared to books? While some enjoy the story line, many enjoy the pacing while there are people who look for literary essence, choice of words and language used. Book reading being a more niche group as compared to movie watchers, their choice of recommendations are quite unique to the individual involved as well. When i was checking for recommendations for thriller novels, this one came up and since Jeffrey Archer is someone i see as my English teacher was immediately into this book.

It started slow, infact very slow. The pacing or the way in which the story was progressing was very unlike any of the Archer novel i had read before and considering that this was based on lawyer as a lead character, was kind of surprised at the content. At the half way mark was even wondering, if it was ghost written by someone else, considering the age of Archer. Till the halfway stage, the book literally drags on with the Old widow, Netty, the titular character, keeping the lawyer character, Latch, in tenterhooks, dragging him from one restaurant to another and piling up his bills without footing anything. Latch, having latched onto the lady solely based on her words that she is sitting on multi million dollar worth of estate, with no heir to bequeath, plays along, driven by greed that he can slice a sizable chunk as fees once the widow breathes her last. She does die, but under suspicious circumstances, and having already been threatened by her step sons, the lawyer who has been taking care of the old lady ,become prime suspect. With the food that he was bringing for her having tested for poison, the lawyer even gets arrested. From here on the story gains pace and all those court room proceedings show Archer at his prime with each cross examination and defense sections coming out nice. The twist in the end being the lawyer being declared unanimously guilty by the jury even though the proceedings were in favor of the lawyer. The end twist being how easily the lawyer, with the help of couple of out of college hackers, manages to figure out the culprit and ends up being released from prison.

The reason why it felt very un-Archer like was the very characterization of the lead character. There is no twist or even a sarcastic wit here and there, leaving the character more mono chromatic than a black and white photo! The end twist was not even a twist but sheer luck of fate and it almost felt like the author gave up half way having lost interest once the character was convicted. Overall a pretty ordinary one and very slow at that.

P.S: kodumaiye kodumaiye...author per kooda ozhunga padikama oru post potruken nenachu oray vekkama poachu kumaaru moment!!! John Grisham booka Jeffrey archer nenachu padicha ipdi thaan agum!!! Book padichathu nejam. Commentsum nejam. If not for Archer, Graham ezhuthinathu nu padichirunthalum would have been as disappointed for i love his books as well. Archer books pathina recommendationuku Graham book kudutha nalla ullam vaazhga. Avanga kuduthapo padhicu paaru nallarukum sonnatha, naan Archer book nu artham panni anartham aanathu solely my mistake!!

Labels:

Comments

Ramesh said…
Gilsu - I feel that any reader's perception of pace has been heavily influenced by movies, serials and social media. Everything has speeded up and very few have patience for a long read. Tolstoy's War & Peace or Anna Karenina would not be read today. You are a voracious book reader, but I suspect your views have changed too since the pace in a movie has to be red hot to capture audience interest. Boredom levels are in a few minutes now. Somebody like a Jeffrey Archer is from the old school and his style of writing is to build the plot slowly. Won't work with mass markets now. I am noticing this with the books I read too - they are shorter, faster and a bit too quick for my liking. But then I am very old school !

This post is a perfect reason why I am exhorting you to write reviews formally - perhaps for Goodreads. You bring the balance between old school and Gen Z and you are a superb reviewer.
Thursday, December 04, 2025
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ode to the Nice Guys

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl's every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style. This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they...
89 comments
Read more

Padithathil pidithathu

Few authors thrill us to read more of their creations. At times its sheer luck that we might end up with the worse of their lot and might give up on them only to find many other good ones which we would've ignored based on first impression. James Rollins is one such author. My friend's sister introduced me to "Map of Bones" and told me that its in the same genre of "Davinci Code" and since i am a sucker for adventure series she recommended this one to me, with a warning that, at times this guy goes over the board like Ludlum in describing situations. With that warning in mind i began the book. I took my own sweet time to finish it but the book kept me interested. However many times i kept it down i always went for it again to know what happened next. In the end, i pretty much liked the story, though it was totally unbelievable. The story is about the bones of the Three wise men or Magi who visited Jesus when he was a kid. Their bones held a clue to a vast so...
40 comments
Read more

Hearbeat - season 2 - review

What makes a drama series tick, in OTT, that too in Tamil? The question should've been pretty straight forward and not as difficult as it is for making a successful movie, for drama series are dime a dozen across scores of TV channels and none of them are found wanting for audience. The more the cry the merrier the TRP. In that context, the only challenge that OTT platforms might've had while streaming tamil series must've been to choose the path - either the well trodden and worn out cryathons aligning with Satellite channels or try for something genre specific like how they do across English and other foreign languages. This is where Heartbeat series in Hotstar finds the fine balance between being a soap oppaari (no pun intended) in tv and carving a niche OTT audience.  While the setup might've been familiar one for Hindi audience with so many series happening on hospital based storyline, i guess this is a first for tamil. The first season was more on establishing the...
2 comments
Read more