Bleachers
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- 69,00 kr
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- 69,00 kr
Publisher Description
Glory never dies.
Neely Crenshaw was the best quarterback ever to play for legendary high school football team, the Messina Spartans. But fifteen years later, with his glory days far behind him, the man everyone remembers is Coach Eddie Rake.
When Neely returns home to bury the dying Coach Rake, he's not alone. Many Spartans veterans want to pay tribute to the man who moulded them.
But stories soon emerge that could tarnish the coach's legacy.
As Neely struggles to come to terms with his explosive relationship with the coach and the choices he made as a young man, the stakes have never been higher. . .
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'A master at the art of deft characterisation and the skilful delivery of hair-raising crescendos' Irish Independent
'John Grisham is the master of legal fiction' Jodi Picoult
'The best thriller writer alive' Ken Follett
'John Grisham has perfected the art of cooking up convincing and fast-paced thrillers' Telegraph
'Grisham is a superb and instinctive storyteller' The Times
'Grisham's storytelling genius reminds us that when it comes to legal drama, the master's in a league of his own' Daily Record
'Masterful - when Grisham gets in the courtroom he lets rip, drawing scenes so real they're not just alive, they're pulsating' Mirror
'A giant of the thriller genre' TimeOut
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Grisham demonstrated he could produce bestsellers without legal aid with The Painted House and Skipping Christmas, and he'll undoubtedly do so again with this slight but likable novel of high school football, a legendary coach and the perils of too early fame. Fifteen years after graduation, Neely Crenshaw, one-time star quarterback of the Messina Spartans, returns home on hearing news of the impending death of tough-as-nails coach Eddie Rake. Neely knows the score: "When you're famous at eighteen, you spend the rest of your life fading away." It's a lesson he's learned the hard way after destroying his knee playing college ball and drifting through life in an ever-downward spiral. He and his former teammates sit in the bleachers at the high school stadium waiting for Rake to die, drinking beer and reminiscing. There is a mystery involving the legendary '87 championship, and Neely has unfinished business with an old high school sweetheart, but neither story line comes to much. Readers will guess the solution to the mystery, as does the town police chief when it's divulged to him (" 'We sorta figured it out,' said Mal") and Neely's former girlfriend doesn't want to have anything to do with his protestations of love ("You'll get over it. Takes about ten years"). The stirring funeral scene may elicit a few tears, but Neely's eulogy falls curiously flat. After living through four hard days in Messina, the lessons Neely learns are unremarkable ("Those days are gone now"). Many readers will come away having enjoyed the time spent, but wishing there had been a more sympathetic lead character, more originality, more pages, more story and more depth.
