This book is a sequel to Camino Island and Camino Winds. But you don't have to have read the previous books to understand and to enjoy this one.

Dark Isle is a small island located just north of Camino Island, off the coast of northeastern Florida. For about 200 years, its residents were former Black slaves who had either escaped plantations on the mainland or who had survived shipwrecks and slave traders crossing the Atlantic. Only folks of African descent ever lived here.

The last person to live on Dark Isle was Lovely Jackson, who left the place in 1955. She's now 80 years old and is living on Camino. She wrote and published a brief memoir about her childhood on Dark Isle. Copies are sold at Bay Books, the popular independent bookstore owned and managed by Bruce Cable.

Now the Tidal Breeze Corp. wants to develop Dark Isle and to rename it Panther Cay. As a concerned local resident, Bruce is focused on stopping the project. He assembles a small cadre of individuals who can help in this regard, including environmental lawyer Steven Mahon and writers Mercer Mann and her husband Thomas. Steven heads the Barrier Island Legal Defense Fund. The two writers spend their summers and vacations on Camino Island, yet they otherwise live in Mississippi. Once Mercer is given the background information on Dark Isle, she wants to write a book about it. She wants to glean and to fold in more memories from Lovely Jackson, too. Steven files a lawsuit against the developers on Lovely's behalf, since she was the last resident on her ancestral island and could therefore be the rightful owner of the tract. All everyone needs is solid proof to move forward.

One of the troubles is that a lot of folklore and mystery are attached to Dark Isle. The place has a curse on it, it seems. No white men have ever set out for it and lived to tell the tale. Additionally, damage from Hurricane Leo (as featured in Camino Winds) may have wiped out any tangible remains from the island anyway. How will anyone be able to find evidence to support Lovely Jackson's claim? Can the old graves of Lovely's ancestors somehow be uncovered? Will these efforts be enough to stop Tidal Breeze and Panther Cay?

Author John Grisham has created a fictional place with fictional people who are faced with special circumstances that are relevant to us today. We've heard recent stories of old slave cemeteries being discovered and researched. Many have been found during new construction digs. Here, we toggle back and forth between our time and the times when Africans were kidnapped, chained, sold, forced onto ships and brought to North America. Grisham allows one of them, Nalla, to tell us her own tragic, yet powerful story.

As usual in a Grisham novel, the storyline is driven by characters and by dialogue. In addition to his main contemporary Camino lineup, he throws a few other quirky people into the mix. He includes jabs at developers and at the current politics in Florida. He even gives us a chance to see an important case come to trial in a Florida courtroom! Will wonders ever cease?

Camino Ghosts is a fast-moving and satisfying read. Again, it's a stand-alone novel, and you don't have to read the other titles first. You can even read these books in any order. The others WILL give you background on the island, on the bookstore, and on Bruce Cable and Mercer Mann, among other folks. This is the first one to consider the African American community and heritage. Perhaps Grisham will bring us back to Camino Island and its environs at another point in the future. It's an interesting place to visit.