Camino Ghosts, Grisham - B+

                 This is the third in a series loosely structured around a bookseller, Bruce Cable, in the fictional north Florida town of Camino Island. Bruce tells a young writer, Mercer, who is summering there, to read a book by a local, Lovely Jackson, telling the story of her ancestors, Africans who occupied and owned the island off the coast called Dark Isle. She had left there in the mid-fifties as a teenager, the last of the descendants of escaped slaves to live on the island. Now a developer wishes to build a massive project on Dark Isle.  Mercer begins to write the story of the slaves, and a local lawyer begins a pro bono legal action to declare Lovely the owner of the island. The efforts to help Lovely entices  some of the 'characters' around town and some financial aid is forthcoming. An archaeological dig is pursued by a national organization interested in slaves' cemeteries. A friend from the NYT is invited to the trial, at which no one can crack Lovely's story.  A Times article rallies Blacks and historians from around the country to her cause. The trial judge rules that Lovely owns the island. The story explodes nationally, and led to Mercer's book becoming a #1 bestseller, the creation of the Nella Foundation, named for Lovely's ancestor who washed ashore after a  shipwreck, and the establishment of the island as a revered and protected place. There are none of the usual twisting, intriguing, and legal surprises in this book, but rather it looks like John Grisham is trying to tug at some heartstrings. As usual, exceptional.