Camino Ghosts by John Grisham: A review

In the 1700s, there was a thriving slave trade of people stolen from their homes in Africa and brought to the Americas. On one of those ships bound for America was an ancestor of Lovely Jackson. Her ancestor survived the wreck of that ship off the coast of Florida and managed to swim, with other survivors, to a small island where they were able to live, free and undisturbed.

Descendants of those first residents continuously inhabited the island until 1955 when Lovely Jackson, the last resident, left what was then known as Dark Isle. She was fifteen years old. 

Now Dark Isle has attracted the attention of a predatory land developer. He wants to build a bridge to the island from the mainland and furnish it with high-priced condos and casinos.

This story, however, begins with a current-day wedding. Writer Mercer Mann marries her long-time beau, Thomas. Mercer mentions to some attendees at the wedding that she is searching for a subject for her next book and her friend, Bruce Cable, owner of Bay Books, suggests the story of Dark Isle.

Lovely Jackson is now in her eighties and lives on Camino Island. Lovely had once written and self-published a book about Dark Isle and some were sold at Bay Books. Bruce arranges a meeting between Lovely and Mercer and both of them eventually accept Bruce's proposal of a nonfiction book about Dark Isle.

Mercer begins her research, hoping to find information that might bolster Lovely's claim to the island. Meantime, Lovely and her legal team of retired lawyer Steven Mahon and his paralegal, Diane Krug, prepare for the legal battle.

This book is actually the third in a series, but it is not necessary to have read the first two to "get" this story. I had not read them, although I might now do so because I found this tale quite intriguing. It is no accident that John Grisham's books sell millions of copies. He is a master storyteller.