A Painted House

A Painted House by John Grisham

"A Painted House" is the first John Grisham novel that I have read. If I have read another, I don't remember. Although the back cover says this is "the kind of book you read slowly because you don't want it to end", it is another that I read in two days, all 465 pages. The story takes place during the summer of 1952 in the Arkansas Delta and is told through the eyes of 7 year old Luke Chandler whose family rents and works a cotton farm. Two different groups of migrant workers take up residence on the farm, each with a dangerous man in their midst. As events of the summer unfold, Luke finds himself keeping more and more secrets. This is a story of murder, suspicion, gossip, passion, mystery, danger, and hardship and written in style that kept me turning the pages.