Camino Ghosts – John Grisham (2024)

Camino Ghosts by John Grisham, published in 2024, is part of the Camino Island series, which blends literary intrigue with social commentary set against the sun-soaked, deceptively tranquil backdrop of Florida’s barrier islands. This installment follows novelist Mercer Mann as she is drawn into a compelling tale of historical injustice and corporate greed, centered around Dark Isle – an unspoiled, allegedly haunted island facing destruction at the hands of aggressive developers. As Mercer investigates, she unearths a forgotten legacy of slavery, survival, and resistance, embedded in the mysterious past of a woman named Lovely Jackson.

Plot Summary

On a beach kissed by the Atlantic tide, Mercer Mann walked barefoot into a new life, exchanging vows with Thomas under a white wicker arch. Surrounded by friends, writers, and literary eccentrics, the wedding shimmered with coastal elegance. Yet even as the champagne flowed and laughter echoed into the night, a whisper of something older stirred nearby – a forgotten island with a secret too long buried. When Bruce Cable, bookstore owner and flamboyant officiant, shared word of a story that could change everything, Mercer, though newlywed and soon to depart for Scotland, couldn’t ignore the pull. Bruce handed her a thin self-published book: The Dark History of Dark Isle, written by a mysterious elderly woman named Lovely Jackson.

As the Highlands rolled past their train window, Mercer devoured the pages, drawn into a harrowing past. Lovely’s account began in 1760, with a raid on a Congolese village. Nalla, a young mother of the Luba tribe, was torn from her husband and child, shackled, and dragged into the jungle with other women. Days of torment followed – hunger, rape, the clanking of chains, the cries of the broken. They were sold, marched westward, and delivered to a slave fort, awaiting the cursed journey across the Atlantic. Packed into the belly of the Venus, they sailed toward Savannah. The stench of despair hung thick, the air almost too foul to breathe. Nalla, like so many others, endured horrors beneath the deck, her dignity stripped, her body used, her spirit tested.

But fate intervened. A storm howled in from the north, a nor’easter with a fury that cracked the Venus apart. Shackled men sank beneath the waves. Women and children, unbound, clung to drifting wreckage. Nalla held tight to a splintered mast. By dawn, she and a few others washed ashore on an unnamed island. Dark Isle. There, they were met not by more captors but by free Black men and women – runaway slaves who had claimed the land decades earlier. Nalla and the others were folded into this hidden community. They built homes, planted roots, and kept alive the memory of what had been lost. From the ashes of the Venus, something sacred began.

Lovely, born on the island in 1940, was Nalla’s last living descendant. Or so she claimed. Her story, scarcely read beyond Camino Island, told of her childhood in isolation, surrounded by spirits, stories, and the ever-watchful eye of the ancestors. When she left Dark Isle at fifteen, she carried more than just memory. She carried a legacy. Now, in her twilight years, she stood as the lone voice opposing Tidal Breeze – a sleek, soulless development company planning to transform Dark Isle into Panther Cay, complete with casinos, condos, golf courses, and marinas. The bridge was coming. The politicians had been bought. The papers ran glossy images of prosperity.

Only Lovely refused to sell.

Back on Camino, Bruce and Mercer knew this fight needed more than sentiment. It needed proof. Lovely’s ownership, recorded nowhere, hung by a thread. Her age, her very origin, were questioned. The developers, relentless and well-lawyered, painted her as a fraud. So Mercer set out to uncover what couldn’t be erased. She met Lovely face to face, found in her not only dignity but sorrow – the sorrow of someone who knew time was running out. Thomas, too, joined the effort. With their friend Bob Cobb, a disgraced lawyer with a streak of defiance, they started building a defense. What they unearthed were deeds, letters, a forgotten will, and most vitally, human testimony.

But the past, like Dark Isle’s sands, was fragile. The curse Nalla had spoken of in her final days – a spell cast with fury and sorrow to protect the graves of the drowned – hung over the island. Locals spoke of strange sightings, unexplained tremors, and dreams that lingered long after waking. The developers dismissed it all as superstition. But others, especially those with roots in the South, listened more closely.

Lovely’s presence at the heart of the battle stirred the town. She began to speak publicly, not with anger but with steady resolve. She recounted her ancestors – women torn from their homes, men who drowned in silence, children lost to the sea. She named the trees and the dunes. She named the buried. And people began to listen. The media caught wind. What began as a small protest rippled outward. Environmental groups joined. Historians chimed in. The Seminole Nation, suspicious of being used as pawns in a casino scheme, withdrew support.

Yet pressure mounted. Tidal Breeze moved fast, pushing permits and flexing political muscle. Bruce organized readings. Mercer wrote op-eds. Bob filed injunctions. As the courtroom battles intensified, Mercer found herself not just defending Lovely’s claim, but reshaping her own understanding of justice, history, and identity. The fight became about more than Dark Isle. It became about who got to speak for the dead.

The court case arrived with humid tension. Tidal Breeze’s lawyers, slick and dismissive, painted Lovely as delusional, her book as fiction. But Bob, tattered suit and all, wielded truth like a blade. He summoned a genealogist, a former midwife, and even a state archivist. Each layered on detail – forgotten church records, a map, the story of the Venus. In a powerful moment, Lovely took the stand. She didn’t speak of deeds or legal rights. She spoke of bones in the soil. Of songs her mother sang. Of names whispered by wind. She didn’t plead. She bore witness.

Then came a document. A surveyor’s sketch, long-lost, found in a museum basement. It bore the name of Nalla, marked in trembling script. The judge, a man not known for emotion, took pause. The ruling, when it came, was cautious – but decisive. The court acknowledged that while ownership could not be fully proven, the land was of undeniable historical and cultural importance. The development was suspended. The island was designated for protection, pending further review.

In the quiet that followed, Mercer returned to her writing desk. Bruce began organizing a foundation. Lovely, smiling softly, stood once more at the edge of the ocean. The waves lapped gently, and behind her, the trees of Dark Isle whispered with the voices of those who had endured, who had resisted, who had survived.

Main Characters

• Mercer Mann – A successful novelist and creative writing professor, Mercer is intelligent, introspective, and passionate about stories that matter. After marrying Thomas, she’s lured into the mystery of Dark Isle by Bruce Cable. As she learns of its painful history, Mercer’s sense of justice is awakened, transforming her from passive observer to active defender.

• Lovely Jackson – The spiritual heart of the novel, Lovely is an elderly woman who claims descent from the enslaved survivors of the shipwrecked Venus and asserts rightful ownership of Dark Isle. Quietly dignified and deeply rooted in her ancestry, she embodies resilience and sacred memory, standing alone against developers determined to erase her history.

• Bruce Cable – A flamboyant bookseller, former lover of Mercer, and local literary fixture, Bruce plays the role of instigator. He introduces Mercer to Lovely’s story, motivated partly by moral conscience and partly by the desire to protect Camino’s soul from unchecked commercialism.

• Thomas – Mercer’s supportive and easygoing husband. Though initially more interested in their honeymoon than history, he grows to appreciate the gravity of the unfolding conflict and supports Mercer’s investigation with warmth and humor.

• Nalla – An ancestral figure and the central voice of Lovely’s historical account, Nalla was a young African woman enslaved and brought across the Atlantic aboard the Venus. Her survival after the shipwreck, escape to Dark Isle, and spiritual defiance establish her as a powerful symbol of ancestral strength and resistance.

Theme

• Historical Injustice and Ancestral Legacy – The narrative confronts the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade through vivid, heart-wrenching accounts of Nalla’s abduction and suffering. Her story, passed down to Lovely, reflects how historical trauma reverberates through generations and shapes present-day identity.

• Resistance to Erasure – Dark Isle becomes a battleground not only for land rights but for the right to memory itself. Lovely’s refusal to sell invokes a larger struggle against the erasure of Black history and the commodification of sacred ground.

• Greed vs. Preservation – The encroachment of developers symbolizes unrestrained capitalism that threatens culture, heritage, and the environment. This tension is palpable throughout the novel as characters weigh profit against principle, and convenience against conscience.

• Storytelling as Power – Grisham frames storytelling – whether through Lovely’s self-published memoir or Mercer’s eventual writing – as a tool for justice and remembrance. The act of telling one’s truth becomes a form of resistance, a reclaiming of agency and history.

• Haunting and the Supernatural – The myth of a curse placed by Nalla and the island’s rumored hauntings introduce a subtle, mystical layer. It’s both a literal warning to outsiders and a metaphor for the indelible presence of the past.

Writing Style and Tone

John Grisham employs a dual-toned narrative approach in Camino Ghosts. The present-day segments reflect his signature style – clean, fast-paced prose with snappy dialogue and sharp characterizations. These scenes, driven by investigation and courtroom tension, are saturated with the sunny charm and coastal flavor of Camino Island. Grisham’s familiarity with the legal and literary worlds adds authenticity to the settings and interactions.

In contrast, the sections recounting the history of Nalla and her fellow captives are written in a lyrical, almost elegiac style. Grisham departs from his typical thriller mode and delves into harrowing, visceral descriptions of the slave trade, evoking deep empathy and horror. These parts are imbued with a solemnity and reverence that elevate them from background exposition to a vital second narrative, woven with the gravitas of historical fiction.

The tone of the book moves fluidly between reflective, suspenseful, and righteous. As the layers of the story unfold, a sense of urgency builds – not just to uncover a mystery, but to defend a moral truth. Grisham’s commitment to blending entertainment with awareness remains evident, and in Camino Ghosts, he balances his familiar legal-intrigue style with profound social commentary.