For many years, I avoided John Grisham and his fellow writers of legal thrillers. The same was true about TV episodes based on courtroom scenes and legal dramas. As a practicing trial lawyer who handles both criminal and civil litigation, I did not see or appreciate the reality of my life compared to the entertainment in books, TV, or movies. At some point, I read about John Grisham’s real life as a practicing lawyer before and during his early writing career, so I gave The Testament (published in 1999) a chance, followed by The Pelican Brief (published in 1992). My misgivings about legal novels dissolve as I read the story of a soon-to-be deceased wealthy man with a broken relationship with his missionary daughter and the lawyer tasked with finding the woman on the mission field in Brazil. I have read almost every novel he has written, including the Theodore Boone legal thriller series written for young readers. Grisham has written a series of books based on other characters who are lawyers, including Jake Brigance and Mitch McDeere. His latest series is about Camino Island, and the lead character is a bookstore owner in Santa Rosa on the fictional Florida island of Camino, not to be confused with Camano Island in Washington State. Grisham’s descriptions of courtroom procedures, rules of evidence, legal strategies, and client behavior are much like my courtroom experiences.

This author deserves a special place on any book list with a series. Kenneth Martin Follett is one of my favorite novelists, starting with Eye of the Needle, a spy thriller written in 1978 and made into a movie of the same name. After publishing many thrillers and historical novels, he created at least two series: Century Trilogy (2010 to 2014) and the five-book series Kingsbridge (1989 to 2023). The British author has sold more than 160 million copies of his works. The first character you meet in the Kingsbridge series is Tom Builder, a 12th-century Master Stonemason with a brilliant mind for his craft and is commissioned to build a cathedral in a small English village called Kingsbridge. You meet his family, the nobility that oppresses Tom and his family, and the church clerics as they struggle to survive in a feudal system of injustice, disease, and death. Those characters and their children continue in the book series for several centuries.

Kingsbridge series:

Century Trilogy:

Beth Moore is an NYT best-selling author, speaker, and founder of Living Proof Ministries, devoted to women and knowing the transformative love of Jesus Christ through the study of the Bible. I recognized Beth Moore’s name but had never heard her speak or read her many books and lecture materials. Reading her 2023 memoir All My Knotted-Up Life was a profound and thoughtful introduction to a woman who has opened her life in ways most people could never accomplish. Moore says, “I wrote the book to untie knots kept clenched in sweaty fists all my life.” She broke a long relationship with the Southern Baptist Church, much of which had to do with the denomination’s support for Donald Trump after the release of the Access Hollywood tapes. The knots in her life go back to childhood and secrets she kept for decades. The book portrays pain, survival, and the power of God’s healing in her life. The book and Beth Moore have become one of my favorites.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is a magical realism novel. The remarkably bright creature is Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living in a Puget Sound aquarium. It was another Skagit Valley Book Club selection that I would not have read on my own but nonetheless enjoyed. Tova Sullivan is an older woman working nights at the aquarium who has experienced tragedy and forms a bond with Marcellus as she goes about her cleaning work. Life becomes complicated, and Marcellus, a bit of a thief and hoarder, finds ways to communicate with humans before his anticipated death. Each character’s backstory is remarkable and makes the book unique.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann was the subject of a 60 Minutes episode because the 18th-century story of sailing into anarchy, murder, imperialism, starvation, and return to England has so much to explore. A British ship, the Wager, left England in 1740 on a secret mission during a war against Spain. The ship sailed around South America and ended up on an island off the coast of Patagonia, stranded for months, facing starvation in a barren wilderness. If the crew had died on that island, there would be no story worth of a documentary, but the crew does return to England, where a court martial was conducted on charges of mutiny, reason, and murder. The Wager is a true story with all the elements of a double thriller during the voyage and the ensuing Admiralty court martial when the crew is rescued and returned home.

Horse: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks is historical fiction based on a real racehorse named Lexington, born in Kentucky in 1850 and became a record-breaking thoroughbred. An enslaved Black groom forms a bond with the foal that continues as the horse races into racetrack history. That history is largely forgotten until a painting of Lexington is found in New York City in 1954, reopening a powerful story about sport, racism, animal medicine, and art. Brooks winds together a complex plot of multiple timelines and characters that is often heartbreaking. If you read Horse, you will learn why Geraldine Brook is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith is a PBS Great American Read Top 100 pick, published in 1943, and has very little to do with a tree. It is all about the characters who grab your heart, even if 1912 Williamsburg does not. The protagonist is 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who you, as the reader, want to protect and guide as she struggles to help her brother Neeley in a family of first-generation immigrants plagued by poverty and alcohol. New York City was a difficult place for a little girl with so much to offer to the world and to us.

The title of The Plot: A Novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz lives up to its title, offering not only a gripping narrative but also well-developed characters. Jacob Finch Bonner takes a wrong turn in his undistinguished writing career and pays the price after writing a best-selling novel based on a plot he acquired (stole) from another writer who is now deceased. The book delves into the acquired plot, gradually unveiling it alongside the intricacies of Bonner’s life throughout the chapters. Stephen King says the book is “insanely readable,” a sentiment I share, although I found tracking the dual plotlines more challenging in the Audible format. The fictional characters in the “Crib” are the product of Bonner’s acquired plot, while the real characters in The Plot have different names but similar roles. If I had the print version, I probably would have started circling character names to follow the story better. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I feel fortunate that Rocket Men by Robert Kurson was assigned reading by my book club. It is a well-written account of the successful 1968 Apollo 8 NASA mission to orbit the moon, which included the three astronauts returning home during Christmas. As you may read in other sections of the Portfolio, I was in a bunker on the Korean DMZ in the winter of 1968 and knew nothing, or almost nothing, of this historic event taking place around the moon above me. Apollo 8 is on a long list of events I missed in 1968, including the assassinations of MLK, Jr. and RFK, riots at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago, the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and the release of some excellent (now classic) rock music albums. Rocket Men filled in the gaps for me, not only about the Apollo 8 mission but of many other events in the last half of 1968. The book is also an intimate description of the crew, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, how they grew up, joined the military, became astronauts, their families, their Christian faith, and their sacrifices for the NASA mission. The book ends with four words taken from one of thousands of telegrams sent to the returning astronauts, which read: “THANKS. YOU SAVED 1968.” Reading Rocket Man saved and supplemented my 1968 Army experience, for which I am grateful.