I just finished reading Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. It's a nice novel: a pleasant, quick read and a nice story. No convolutions, no feelings of emptiness. The existential questions are left unresolved, but it doesn't matter. It is set in Parma, Italy, about a former NFL quarterback, now playing for the Parma Panthers.
Playing for Pizza has none of the strength and insight offered in Grisham's other football novel, Bleachers, which I highly recommend. Bleachers, along with A Painted House, show that Grisham is a really good novelist, not just a writer of suspense novels with complicated plots.
Of course there's nothing wrong with novels with convoluted plots, and Grisham has written some of the best. Among those, I would include The Firm, The Pelican Brief, and Runaway Jury, all of which were much more complex than their movie versions.
Although I like most of Grisham's novels, I absolutely detested his first one, A Time to Kill, for its gruesome violence. And I didn't like The Chamber or his foray into non-fiction, The Innocent Man.
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