The Boys From Biloxi

By John Grisham

Published: Oct. 18, 2022; Doubleday

Hardcover, 454 pages, $29.95

Reviewed by: Peter Mansfield

Prostitution. Strip clubs. Gambling. Mobsters. Illegal booze. Homemade bombs. Contract killers. Beachside assassinations. Cockfighting. Armed robbery. Stolen jewelry. A category-five hurricane. Misbehaving servicemen. Crooked cops. Drug smuggling. Confidential informants. Daring prisonbreak. Suicide. Capital punishment.

If that sounds like too much frenetic activity for one book, you’re probably unfamiliar with the many previous works of lawyer/ novelist John Grisham. In The Boys From Biloxi, his 51st(!) book, Grisham stages these events over the course of about 30 years in the scenic, but hardly sleepy, beachside town of Biloxi, located in south Mississippi along the Gulf of Mexico.

The story tracks two generations of families, the Malcos and Rudys, who originally emigrated from Croatia to the Mississippi gulf coast in the early 20th century. The action begins in earnest in the late 1950s. As the de facto boss of the loosely organized Dixie mafia, Lance Malco has begun consolidating his empire of illegal alcohol, gambling, and prostitution at nightclubs along beachside Highway 90. In contrast, idealistic family man, Jesse Rudy, is commuting to evening law school in New Orleans. Meanwhile, their sons, Hugh and Keith, are close friends and star together on the local Little League baseball team.

By the 1960s, both patriarchs are firmly committed to their chosen vocations. While Lance is willing to employ any violent means to justify his end—a near monopoly on beachside vice, Jesse has graduated law school, built a successful civil-law practice, and grown increasingly frustrated with local law enforcement’s permissive attitude towards the massive crime syndicates on the coast. Their respective offspring have shown interest in following in their fathers’ footsteps. Hugh Malco becomes a mobster’s apprentice, while Keith Rudy enrolls in law school.

Hurricane Camille brings unprecedented fury and destruction to mark the end of the 1960s in Biloxi. Having built up a reservoir of goodwill in the community by suing insurance companies after the storm, Jesse is elected district attorney in the 1970s on a reform platform. He quickly sets his prosecutorial target on organized crime, which pits the Rudys squarely against the Malcos. Father against father. Son against son. The conflict is palpable, the stakes are high, and the maneuvers are Machiavellian. By the end of the decade, each major character has crossed a personal Rubicon, setting in motion a series of events with life-changing ramifications for each character.

Grisham employs several time-tested storytelling motifs in the book. The feuding-families theme may remind readers of Romeo and Juliet, or perhaps Wuthering Heights. The friends-turned-foes trope pops up in Julius Caesar and The Count of Monte Cristo. Finally, the dynamics between trailblazing fathers and imitating sons hearken back to The Godfather.

Regular Grisham readers will also recognize several of his own thematic calling cards in The Boys From Biloxi. Like most of his fiction, the protagonists are idealistic attorneys in the south attempting to overcome nearly insurmountable odds against evil forces of corruption and greed. In fact, Grisham’s protagonists often seem drawn from a classic Frank Capra script, like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Grisham frequently populates his stories with colorful fringe characters who have just enough backstory to make them interesting. Finally, as he previously explored in books like The Chamber, The Testament, The Summons, and Sycamore Row, Grisham’s latest work again examines the intergenerational weight of family virtues and vices.

Grisham’s fiction seldom takes deep dives into legal intricacies that would get lost on lay readers. The Boys From Biloxi is no exception. In fact, some of the courtroom dialogue is a bit cringeworthy. Likewise, his laissez faire approach to ex parte communications with the court is unrealistic, even for fictional attorneys and judges. But attorney-readers may find his description of equity litigation in Mississippi chancery court interesting. Grisham also takes a foray into insurance-coverage disputes after Hurricane Camille, though his narrative seems more likely based on knowledge of litigation after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, rather than historic scholarship from the 1970s dockets. Grisham is an outspoken opponent of the death penalty; unlike The Chamber, The Confession, or The Innocent Man, capital punishment isn’t the central focus of this book. Nonetheless, its few appearances in the text reflect the author’s longstanding views on its inefficacy.

Two of Grisham’s greatest strengths—a swift pace and strong sense of place—are on full display in The Boys From Biloxi. The book is divided into four parts. About midway through part two, the pace of activity accelerates and never lets up until the final page. The first 100 pages or so are slower only by comparison, but are necessary for the author to establish the culture, geography, and economics of the 1950s–70s era Mississippi gulf coast, all of which figure prominently in the storyline.

That’s not to say the book is flawless. In fact, there are two errors in continuity that suggest hasty or insufficient editing. In one, a meeting begins in a conference room in Pascagoula, Miss., but transitions mid-page to a courthouse in Biloxi, over 20 miles away. In the other, a character dies just before a lengthy prison term at the end of one chapter, though later chapters refer not only to the ostensible fact of his incarceration, but even the prison’s location. Doubleday will presumably make these minor corrections before the paperback printing.

But one wholly unwarranted criticism is that Grisham’s story could never occur in real life. As in many cases, truth is stranger than fiction. While a detailed discussion of real events may spoil some plot elements from The Boys From Biloxi, curious readers can easily research the fates of Judge Vincent Sherry, Biloxi councilwoman Margaret Sherry, and Biloxi mayor Pete Halat.

The author is unquestionably at home in the setting and subject matter of the book. Grisham grew up in Mississippi in the

1960s–70s, attended college and law school there, and was a member of the Mississippi bar and, at one point, the Mississippi House of Representatives. His familiarity with the Sherry/Halat matter is nearly certain, and his vivid descriptions of historic Biloxi-based vice are probably based more on his personal recollection than second-hand press reports.

In sum, The Boys From Biloxi is a rollicking ride down Highway 90 in a bygone era of lawlessness and corruption on the coast. Like most of his prior novels, Grisham’s latest is perfect light reading for vacation or travel. Lawyers seeking an interesting, and not terribly taxing, tale as a break from legal work that’s way too often the inverse would do well to pick up a copy. 