Camino Ghosts

A Novel (Camino, Book 3)

By: John Grisham

Narrated by: Whoopi Goldberg, Josh Grisham

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Escape to Camino Island, where bookseller Bruce Cable and novelist Mercer Mann always manage to find trouble in paradise.

Mercer Mann, a popular writer from Camino Island, is back on the beach, marrying her boyfriend, Thomas, in a seaside ceremony. Bruce Cable, infamous owner of Bay Books, performs the wedding. Afterward, Bruce tells Mercer that he has stumbled upon an incredible story. Mercer desperately needs an idea for her next novel, and Bruce now has one.

The true story is about Dark Isle, a sliver of a barrier island not far off the North Florida coast. It was settled by freed slaves three hundred years ago, and their descendants lived there until 1955, when the last one was forced to leave. That last descendant is Lovely Jackson, elderly now, who loves her birthplace and its remarkable history. But now Tidal Breeze, a huge, ruthless corporate developer, wants to build a resort and casino on the island, which Lovely knows, deep down, is rightfully hers.

Mercer befriends Lovely, and they plunge into an enormous fight over who owns Dark Isle, taking on Tidal Breeze Corporation, its lawyers, lobbyists, and powerful Florida politicians. But Lovely knows something about the island that could seriously cloud the dollar signs in the developer’s eyes: the island is cursed. It has remained uninhabited for nearly a century for some very real and very troubling reasons. The deep secrets of the past are about to collide with the enormous ambitions of the present, and the fate of Dark Isle—and Camino Island, too—hangs in the balance.

Look for all of John Grisham’s rollicking Camino novels:
Camino Island
Camino Winds
Camino Ghosts

©2024 John Grisham (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Light-hearted . . . The Camino books have felt like palate cleansers for Grisham, something fun to do before tackling the weightier issues that usually form the backbone of books such as The Client. . . . Grisham makes sure the book moves like the winds that buffet his fictional island.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

Maybe grab the paper version to avoid narration

Story wise I think this is as good as the first two of the series. This is the first of this series i tried the audio version and Whoopi’s narration is sort of distracting to me. She reads it in a way I would describe as how you read a bed time story to your kid. It is frustrating to listen to because of this. But again the story and the actual book itself is still very good I’d just maybe opt not to do the audio version.

Disappointed

Definitely my least favorite of the trilogy.
The narrator was horrible. I wish Michael Beck had been used again.

Whoopi wasn’t a great choice.

This was difficult to get through a lot of the time. Goldberg’s narration was clunky and she didn’t seem to put much effort in to any dialogue unless it was from Lovely. Also, the story was just so-so. Interesting attempt to weave a legal drama into this.
Last, I had about the same opinion of Lovely as I do of Whoopi in real life, so I thought it was a little ironic that Grisham stated he wanted Whoopi to narrate because of Lovely.

Having Whoopi Goldberg as the narrator, she’s fabulous

I like the Camino series and I hope Mr. Grisham writes some more in the series as we’ve gotten to know the characters over the last eight years

Disappointing

Good story as you expect from Grisham, but story lost by the narrator. Love Goldberg but her narration lost the story. Not the right fit.

Good story but narration ill-suited

I recently read the first two books in this series. I think I liked the first the best. I did enjoy this story but thought Whoopi Goldberg’s narration was very poorly suited. Her New York accent was wrong for a story in set in the south and I thought was both too harsh and not varied enough for the characters.

Grisham never disappoints as writer & story teller.

Awesome locale and characters survive from Series #1 and #2. But…Get the book. Do not waste this fantastic read with the terrible narration on the audiobook. One wonders if the author listened to the audiobook?

The whistling/breathy voice of the narrator.

Disliked narrator’s voice that was distracting from the story line. The story itself was great.

Excellent all the way around

I am not a fan of the narrator but she did do an excellent job with the story. I love the development of characters that we already knew. It is difficult to listen to the telling of the capture and treatment of the slaves, but I can appreciate that it is history. Understandably, it’s a part of our history we’d like to forget about and hope to be better people. Grisham is still one of the greatest legal thriller writers.

Narration made it very hard to stay engaged.

It was really hard to get through this book because the narration was bordering on monotone….