Playing for Pizza - John Grisham's latest novel is rather light reading compared to the legal thrillers he wrote earlier in his career. I haven't actually read any of his legal thrillers yet, but I did see Tom Cruise in the film adaptation of The Firm. It was a good movie. One day I will read the book.

I have read The Broker and The Summons, and now I have finished Playing for Pizza. Playing for Pizza has what I call a soft ending. It is very open-ended without any definitive answers about the characters' futures. Like The Summons, this story just ends with no clear indication about where the characters are headed in their lives. Grisham does this all the time. It's not a bad idea, because if he wants to write a sequel, he can. He has options for a follow up on lots of his characters.

Playing for Pizza is about a journeyman quarterback, Rick Dockery, who throws so many late interceptions in the NFC Championship Game that he literally passes the Cleveland Browns out of the Super Bowl. Dockery suffers a serious head injury in the debacle and is hospitalized. Waking up from a coma, Dockery is told by his agent that he was put on waivers. He is a Brown no longer.

None of the 29 other NFL teams want Dockery, and Dockery won't play arena ball. Out of options, his agent finally lands him a starting job ... in Italy. The Italians have a club league. They play football americano on converted rugby pitches. Some of the fields are only 90 yards long. Dockery spends a lot of his time eating Italian food and chasing women. He also plays football americano. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say Playing for Pizza is a light departure from Grisham's harder work. At 258 pages, the book doesn't take long to finish, and the warm season setting is a nice departure from the cold realities of December.