BOOKS: The Boys from Biloxi: John Grisham

Feb. 25—John Grisham can still tell a page-turning story.

In "The Boys from Biloxi," he follows two boys and two families as they rise to differing kinds of prominence in Biloxi, Miss.

Readers meet Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco as boyhood friends and all-star Little League teammates in the early 1960s. But Grisham stretches back a couple of generations to reveal the immigrant roots of both boys' families.

And while those family histories led to both boys playing on the same baseball team, their destinies will pit them against one another in brutal ways.

Hugh's father runs the clubs on the Coast and is the crime boss of all of the criminal activities — ranging from gambling, prostitution, murder, etc. — in Biloxi.

Keith's father is an attorney who rises to prominence helping residents gain their insurance payments after the devastating calamity of Hurricane Camille. A man then elected district attorney on the vow to clean up the clubs.

"The Boys from Biloxi" is one of Grisham's epics — a novel where he mixes courtroom drama with the history of families and place.

The first half to two-thirds of the book is filled with marvelous detail and character development. The latter portion of the book is more plot driven, with far less insight and detail into what's happening with these characters. Grisham has a lot ground to cover in the last portion of "The Boys from Biloxi."

That said, had Grisham infused the latter part of this book with the same intricacies as the first half, the novel would have likely neared 1,000 pages instead of 450-plus pages. Had he written the entire book in the manner that he pens the last part, it would have likely been a 200- to 250-page book.

Readers will care for these characters and want to know what happens to them next, which is why some readers may have been willing to read a few more hundred pages of this book just to spend more time with them.