This is simply , once again, a great Grisham legal story.
It involves a town, Biloxi, and a variety of participants that includes the Malco and Rudy families, some lowly characters, and a crooked sheriffs department.
As usual, Mr. Grisham provides a compelling story line, very interesting characters, an excellent plot and a quite readable novel. I kept picking it back up to “ just read a few pages”…I highly recommend this novel if you like courtroom drama and or legal novels.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me this ARC.

3 ½ - 4 stars. Wonderful historical novel from John Grisham, spanning over several generations. This new style gives more room to character development as we follow the Rudy and Malco families as the grow apart and eventually collide in the court room.

It's a decades spanning novel about the coastal region of Mississippi, and the corruption and illegal acts going on in a small town. Being from a small town myself, it's sobering. I can certainly see how only a few people could rise to "power" in these situations, especially back in the 50'. We always say "it can't happen here", well, trust me it can at least try to happen, no doubt. Powerful writing.

I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This has been my least favorite Grisham novel to date. It reads less like a novel and more like a non-fiction retelling of organized crime activity in Biloxi spanning several decades. The characters are flat and there's just no heart to the story. And then the ending... so abrupt.

I hate to say this, but I just do not recommend this book at all. Fans of Grisham will surely be disappointed and newcomers to his work will wonder why he's a best selling author.

John Grisham is one of my favorite authors and I can always count on a great reading experience with every book published with his name on tte cover. Once again, Grisham has hit one out of the park with The Boys From Biloxi. It is a story about two
Croatian families living on the coast of Mississippi whose sons take very different paths in life. Hugh, prefers the gambling business that is a popular and lucrative attraction all up and down the coast. and Jesse who chooses to become a lawyer. and fight crime.
That sets the stage for a great legal thriller when Jesse becomes the District Attorney and goes after the gambling halls.. This also sets up a battle between the two men and a trial that is always some of Grisham's best work, and it is some of tte best part of this book.
The novel is not simply the clash between good and evil but is a history of the town of Biloxi and the Gulf Cosst of Mississippi The story is interesting, entertaining, compelling and complex with humor, intrigue, the
thought provoking battle between good and evil, with terrific writing all the way through. A eal winner all the way!

I am not a big fan of legal thrillers, but decided to give this one a try. Grisham is of course a great writer, so I weighed in. I was stationed at Keesler AFB for 3 years as an instructor, and was curious about the location of the story. The author brought me into the story quickly and well, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Much of it was about the criminal element of the area, and I recall little of that aspect. His characters and plot kept me engrossed, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I may just try some of his other novels after this!!!

This story has an interesting premise in the two boys playing sports together and then choosing two very different life paths. The setting was also well described. However, for me the story dragged and didn't keep my attention. I read the first 8 chapters and then laid it aside. I may come back to it sometime since I really expected it to be a good one. If I do go back to it I will send further comments and post to Goodreads.com.

The Boys from Biloxi is the latest from John Grisham and a departure from his normal fare. I really enjoyed the historical look into Biloxi, and learned a lot along the way. The book started a bit slow for me, but it continued to get better as it went along.

Beautifully crafted and intelligent thriller.
One of the best Grishams, and that's saying a lot.

I enjoyed this book, it’s workmanlike Grisham. I was expecting more of a thriller, the plot was more historical fiction. It’s very readable with his usual high quality writing. The characters are well drawn and I was interested to watch how differently the two main characters developed.

I liked this book but wouldn’t read it again, I enjoy his legal thrillers more. 3.5 stars
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

I have always enjoyed John Grisham’s legal thrillers. Usually so much that I can hardly put the book aside until I finish the last page. But not so much with his latest book, The Boys from Biloxi.

I had only read a few pages when I began to wonder if this was really a Grisham book and it didn’t get any better. It just didn’t seem to be his writing style, and worse yet, the sentences were choppy, the storyline remained unclear for much longer than it should have, and overall it read like a high school book report – just the facts, ma’am. It became boring very quickly and I was glad when I managed to finished it. The Boys from Biloxi was a huge disappointment.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review. This is a fascinating story about two twelve year old boys from Biloxi, Mississippi who are best friends . They come from totally different backgrounds and their lives take different paths. Hugh Malco follows in his father’s footsteps as a criminal dealing with drugs, prostitution, gambling, murder and more. Keith Rudy follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes an honest lawyer , District Attorney and eventually Attorney General. The boys’ friendship ends when they both go in different directions. As adults, Keith and Hugh cross paths when Keith is the Attorney trying to have Hugh executed for horrendous acts including murder. The story was interesting, but, it was too long. I lost interest several times and was tempted to skip pages to get to the end.

In typical Grisham fashion he has told a complicated story that had me at times hooked for more. This tale of two families was not his typical legal thriller that I've become accustomed to but what felt like a historic read for an area of the south with some legal things that started to shape what I've come to expect around the middle of this book. This tale was well told and at times had me questioning if this was really a fictitious read. I will admit at times that there were a lot of characters that played a part of this book and sometimes were hard to keep up with but overall this was a good read that I enjoyed from start to finish and would recommend to others.

After taking a long hiatus from reading John Grisham novels, I started picking them up again and have now read most of what he has published in the past 4 years. With this one, I struggled between 3 and 4 stars.

The Boys From Biloxi was a compelling, LONG novel. I stayed engaged throughout, which is what pushed my rating up. What I didn't like was how many characters were in the novel over the time span covered. I get that this was a saga, and even though I KNEW that from the description, my muscle memory of John Grisham novels couldn't compute that, so I kept wanting to know more about each character's story, even as the story moved on to the next and the next and so on.

There was little to no mystery. The Boys From Biloxi is not really even a courtroom drama for most of the novel. It was really a historical fiction novel about a few generations of people set in the seedy underworld of a corrupt city as it used to be, clearly a history and city that the author loves.

I think most people will LIKE this book and I would recommend it to my friends. Readers would just do well, though to make sure they know the genre of this book is not something they have read from John Grisham before.

I cannot say this was a great Grisham read, as he seems a little off his game with this one. The Boys from Biloxi shares the story of two boys who grow up together but experience very different family lives. If you enjoy thrillers set in the South during the 60s, this book might be for you.

Thank you, NetGalley and Doubleday Books, for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham is a thriller set in Mississippi, a saga of two Croatian immigrant families who find themselves on the opposite side of the law. Mr. Grisham is a best-selling author whose books have been translated all around the world.

Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up ion Biloxi together, played on the same teams, and rooted for each other. The Malco family has become part of the Dixie Mafia, dabbling in alcohol, gambling, and prostitution. The Rudy family turned to the less lucrative occupation of honest living.

The two childhood friends find themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom, in a showdown that will live its mark on Biloxi for generations to come.

I have always enjoyed Mr. Grisham’s books and jumped at the chance to read his latest. The premise sounded enticing; a legal/mafia thriller set in Biloxi.

This was a strange book, part history of Biloxi, part crime thriller, part legal thriller, part philosophical discussions, all told through short sentences, almost styled as a documentary.

The reader is “listening” to an omnipotent narrator without unfortunately, without the characters evolving much. My copy started with two glaring historical errors which almost made me put the book down, this is not the Grisham books I’ve known. However, I figured since it was a galley it might have been caught, but from reading other online reviews I guess they weren’t. To be honest, if I didn’t know that John Grisham wrote The Boys from Biloxi, I certainly wouldn’t have guessed.

Even though the story is somewhat repetitive, it is still very well done, despite the appearance that an editor’s hand never touched many parts. Even though I didn’t care much for the characters, they are certainly interesting and unforgettable.

As in many other Grisham books, there are sports scenes, and, of course, courtroom dramas that would last a lifetime to any one person. I found the frank discussions about legal morality, responsibility, as well as the death penalty in the context of the novel to be fascinating.

Even though the setup seemed too long, the courtroom ending brought the book up a notch. As previously mentioned, this was a strange novel, not very “Grisham-like”, but enjoyable nonetheless.

John Grisham explores the history of gambling in Biloxi, MS with this fictional look at two families. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco played on the same baseball team in Little League and in high school Their fathers, both immigrants, had very different outlooks on life and careers. Hugh's father became the head of gambling, vice, and prostitution in Biloxi while Keith's father became determined to clean up the city. Mr. Rudy became the prosecutor and Hugh's father went to jail.

Hugh followed in his father's footsteps and took over as crime boss. Keith also followed his father into the practice of law. When Keith's father is killed, he is determined to link it back to the Malco family.

The story paints a fascinating picture of life during the years of Prohibition and the decades that followed. One issue, which I hope has been corrected in the final publication, is that the sheriff was said to have committed suicide in one chapter while the next couple of chapters place him in prison in Maine.

Recommended for Grisham fans.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
As a Grisham fan, I was excited to read this one (as I am to read every one of his books), although this book is not one of his typical legal thrillers. This book tells the story of two families – the Malcos and the Rudys. Both families are of Croatian heritage and both settled in Biloxi. Hugh Malco and Keith Rudy grew up, played baseball and graduated HS together. However, after graduation they separated but each followed their respective fathers’ footsteps and joined the family businesses.
Hugh joined his dad, Lance, running nightclubs along the “Strip” which also offered illegal gambling, prostitution and drug dealing. Keith joined his dad, Jesse, at his law firm which attempted to take down all illegal establishments and the bosses that control them.
This is a slow burn but you know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. There isn’t a lot of “mystery” to this story and not a lot of dialogue. The story starts to pick up when it gets to the court proceedings tied to Jesse’s attempts to clean up the city.
The book begins with a LOT of backstory and character development. So much so that I wondered how it all tied in but it did become apparent as the book progressed.

This book was too long and very wordy. This book took me much longer to read than I would have expected, and finally had to force myself to sit and read it so I could move on.

Usually the pace of Grisham's books is fast and keeps the pages turning, but this one took too long to set up. Finally at about 50% the story started after the background story of two families in Biloxi Mississippi, the history of the fathers, the sons and their places in town. Once the actual story began, more characters were introduced, from far and wide places in the state of MS, with varying criminal backgrounds. It was a lot to keep track of, and the family backgrounds were too drawn out to keep me interested. After plowing through, we got to Grisham's strengths of crime and courtroom, and for the next 30% I was enjoying the book and not having problems sticking with it. But after the verdict, the books goes for another 100 pages of extra detail. I did enjoy the ending of the book, but overall, it could have been 200 pages shorter.

I really liked the Rudy family and feel like Keith and Jesse could be expanded into more books- with some serious editing- and I would be interested in reading them. However, for this book, the overall plot I enjoyed, but I did not find the escape in reading it I look for. It is not one of Grisham's I would recommend.

John Grisham's latest novel, The Boys from Biloxi, is a thrill seeker. Set in Mississippi during the sixties, two teenagers who were friends growing up, take a radical change in their friendship due to family backgrounds. Life in Biloxi in the sixties, is a time of criminal underground, and racial tensions. Friendships fall apart due to family situations and the two boys take radical change in their lives. I want to encourage to read this novel for those who want to understand how choices you make affect your future lives.