Grass Roots
by Stuart Woods
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stuart WoodsEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-12-30
ISBN: 006171156X
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: Harper
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780061711565
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Book Reviews of Grass Roots
Book Review: A complete disaster, except for the courtroom scenes
Summary: 2 Stars
I don't read a lot of political melodramas, and 'Grass Roots' reminded me why. I was intrigued by the cover blurb promising a mix of down-home courtroom drama, with dashes of campaign suspense, and maybe even some 'Agency' intrigue. The quote on the back cover that 'Woods...could teach Ludlum and Clancy a thing or too' was, unfortunately, inaccurate.
Woods seems to have borrowed the most cliched aspects of both Clancy and John Grisham, along with political conspiracy thories that were 'plausibly implausible' even years before this novel was published, and which have no doubt inspired several more recent entries in the ever-expanding 'Da gummint is out ta GIT ya!' genre of suspense fiction.
This book contains every stale genre-fiction cliche about political dynasties, idealistic candidates, genteel southerners, understanding love interests, fork-tongued televangelists, and murder-trial defendants who really screw things up for their attorneys, and boils it all down into a book that, at 600 pages, paradoxically manages to be both concise and long-winded(but made me wish some of the longer scenes were shorter, and vice versa!)At least he toned down the southern dialect, so that we didn't have to see too many of the 'traditional' dialectical phrases and misspellings..except, of course, those uttered by the 'traditional', old, black, housekeeper who knew his place. At least, even by 1989, the author saw no need to have an elderly white character use the word 'negro', just to show their age.
Political novels set in specific eras, in the author's version of 'the real world', become terribly dated after a short time, although this seems to have done a good job of capturing the trend in the last 20-odd years, of candidates from 'lowly' backgrounds, with somewhat dubious character and qualifications, who manage to [...] their way to a series of elections to public office.
The courtroom thriller side of the story, when not buried and neglected under 'our hero Will's campaign misadventures, is actually not that bad, and if Woods had left the politics out almost completely, and developed the case a lot more, he might have been on to something. I enjoyed the first few chapters, but as the cliches mounted, and the story became a series of interludes that the author miraculously remembered to actually connect to Will before he tied it all together(except for the stuff he conveniently saved for the sequel), I found myself skimming the more hackneyed scenes.
I've since learned that this 'secret society' returned in Woods' next book in the series, but that one(and some of the subsequent entries) haven't done as well in this site's reviews. That's convinced me not to 'root' through any more of this series!
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