This is the follow-up book to Camino Island. Bruce Cable is still operating his Bay Books bookstore and is still sharing his life with Noelle. She is traveling in Europe, when the book begins, to spend time with her paramour, Jean-Luc. She and Bruce have had a long standing open relationship that does not demand monogamy. She has a store near his where she sells antiques, but they cohabit.
Bruce is having a dinner for one of his authors, Tessa Mercer. She arrives on the island with her boyfriend, putting a cramp in Bruce’s Don Juan reputation, but he is agreeable with the arrangement and prepares a welcome dinner for her before her planned book presentation. An uninvited guest arrives later that night, which changes all their plans. A category 4 hurricane, Leo, comes barreling toward Camino Island and makes a direct hit.
When the hurricane passes, Bruce goes around to check up on the bookstore and the antique store and then on his neighbors well-being. When he is stopped and informed that one of the guests at his dinner, a friend and best selling author, Nelson Kerr, has been found dead on his property, apparently from a storm injury, Bruce and his comrades visit the crime scene. Afterwards, all three, Bruce, Bob who is an ex-con, now an author, and Nick who is a Wake Forest college student and summer employee, come to the conclusion that Nelson’s death might not have been an accident. A tree limb doesn’t generally land on a person’s head four times!
Nick has his own theory about Nelson’s death. Nick fancies himself a writer too, and Bruce thinks that although he is young and his work ethic leaves something to be desired, he has talent. Together they join forces to instigate a more complete investigation of Nelson’s death. It takes them into the murky world of illegal drugs and murder for hire. As the investigation plays out, illegal practices in nursing homes are exposed, as well. Greed and drug trafficking, along with off-shore hidden money, also play prominent roles in the story.
The story is strangely prescient since it was written before the Covid 19 virus and the suspicions of its origin in China, yet oddly enough, the illegal drug in this book was secretly manufactured in a large factory there, in China, and shipped to the United States where it was being used, illegally, in order to prolong the life of those very near death, for no conceivable reason, other than the greedy profit motive.
How the scheme is uncovered is really the basis of the story and it is filled with interesting tangents making the book more of a good story than a murder mystery. As it was in Camino Island, in the end, even the good characters want their share of the spoils. Sometimes, it became fortuitous to turn a blind eye to the situation.
There are some loose ends which are never tied up, but for the most part, the book is an interesting read, perfect for the beach or this time of quarantine. It won’t tax the brain, and it will surely entertain the reader.

Not John Grisham's best writing but enjoyable

Camino Winds is essentially part 2 of Camino Island. Do not read Winds unless you first read Island. That said WInds is boring and unconvincing