Dear Great Book Guru,  What a fabulous beginning to the  New Year! Suggested by John Brady and put into action by Mayor Kennedy,  Musical Welcome to 2013 rang through the streets of Sea Cliff with citizen musicians playing and singing Auld Lang Syne , and I heard next year we might be doing this altogether at Memorial Park illuminated by the glow of  hundreds of candles.  Well, after this great beginning,  do you have something fun I can read over the next few days?  New Year Reveler

Dear New Year Reveler,  I too loved the Musical Welcome as did all our guests who enthusiastically joined in this event. Thank you, John and Mayor Kennedy!  While getting ready for the evening's festivities, I read a really enjoyable Grisham mystery.  Early Grisham I loved , mid- career Grisham I avoided, but his last few have once again won me over. THE RACKETEER is his latest and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Told largely in the first person voice of Malcolm Bannister, a forty-three years-old, recently divorced, recently disbarred, presently imprisoned ex-lawyer, the novel chronicles his  extraordinarily  clever pursuit of justice in and out of a minimum security federal prison. We travel with him and his entourage throughout the South and to colorful Caribbean islands- all the time trying to figure how the many puzzling details will come together, and of course, they do in sterling Grisham fashion.  The book is a quick read (about three hours) but the characters will linger with you for a very long time.