John Grisham's new book is a great short story. Yes, short story. It is about half the length of his normal novels. As such I was disappointed, not with the story, but with the price. It seemed to be a bit high priced for the product. I don't usually complain about price, so I will put that at the end.STORY REVIEW:Theodore Boone is a 13 year old aspiring lawyer. He is in a private school and one of the brightest students that they have. His parents are both lawyers. His mom is a divorce lawyer and his father is a Real Estate Lawyer. Neither are what we would consider high courtroom drama lawyers. Theodore wants to be a courtroom lawyer, maybe a Criminal Defense Lawyer, or maybe a Prosecutor, but definitely a lawyer who is in the front of the fight in the courtroom.As such Theo has spent a good bit of time in the local courthouse watching trials. He has even added people who are going to "Animal Court" where they are facing a small claims court type of proceeding where "lawyers" aren't the usual fare, the people usually represent themselves. But Theo has been a friendly help to many who go to that court.But our story starts with Theo wanting to attend the trial of a man accused of killing his wife. His school gives him a day pass to go to the court and observe the opening arguments of the trial so that he can then come back and give a report to the Civic's class on the courtroom proceedings. Theo gets to the court and sits with his uncle Ike (who happens to be a lawyer who ran afoul of the system and is no longer practicing). As the trial is ready to start and all the lawyers and judge are in place there is only one small problem. The defendant has fled. He is no where to be found. He is in violation of his bail and will be forfeiting a million dollars worth of property put up for bail. Where is he? Why has he run? What will Theo have to do with it? Is it because Theo found a witness to the crime (an illegal alien) whom he has convinced to come forward to testify for the prosecutor's office.The reason I wonder if Theo is involved is because after the court let's out with a mis-trial because the defendant isn't around strange things start to happen. Theo's bike tires keep getting slashed. Theo is accused then of breaking into a local electronic's store and stealing thousands of dollars worth of items, some of which are found in his locker at school by the police. Theo is now on the short list of suspects in a crime. Students at school start to spread rumors. There is even an E-mail to hit the internet that mistakenly states that Theo has been arrested and has a trial date looming in Juvenile court (untrue at the moment, but a possible reality).His parents and school officials and his scout master all believe Theo, but the police don't. Uncle Ike steps up to try and help Theo solve the case to get him off the hook. And, all the time there is the problem of Peter Duffy, the wife killer, being on the loose.Who wants to mess with Theo's life? Or did Theo really do it and has everybody fooled?In the midst of all of this there is Animal Court and Theo goes to help Miss Petunia defend her llama from unwarranted harassment from a Security Cop he wants to throw his weight around. The 15 pages of this animal courtroom drama is probably one of the funniest things I have read in years. I laughed so hard I cried.The book is great. It is probably one of the best Grisham has written lately. So, the story is FIVE STARSSo, why did I give it only FOUR STARS? Because it is my way of saying to the publishers, I am tired of you guys hiking up the price of E-books for more profit for yourselves. Amazon introduced the Kindle with the desire to have no book over $9.99. That could still be the case if the publishers would stop being so greedy.How do I know they are greedy? Well a very good friend has self-published seven novels. They have been picked up by a real publisher for two of the novels. But when this author formatted the novels for Kindle the author found that she could make more profit than a hard-published book and that was even selling for less. Example, paperback book sells for $14.95, the author makes $1.20 in profit. Kindle format of the same book sells for $6.95 and the author is making $4.00 profit. Which would the author prefer? Well to make $4 for a $7 dollar price every time. So, come on publishers, you make more money on E-books than hardcopy. Quit being greedy, take your better profits and give us excellent reading for a reasonable price. OK, sorry that's my rant. I've never done that before, but unfortunately here's the truth. The next Grisham novel will get published without me buying it unless the publisher gets over their greed.SO, enjoy this book, it is great, but maybe borrow it from a friend or the library.