The Appeal: John Grisham

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Pete Banning was Clanton, Mississippi’s favorite son—a decorated World War II hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo’s. As ever with Grisham, the mechanics of plotting are key, and the characterisation is functional rather than detailed.

The Appeal - Penguin Books UK The Appeal - Penguin Books UK

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. John Grisham considered it “smart” and “suspenseful” but was disappointed because of the marginal collection. They later seek the help of an alcoholic advocate Regina “Reggie” Love (Susan Saanson), who helps them. And, even though I don't consider The Appeal to be one of Grisham's more sentimentalist efforts, I would be dishonest to imply that there weren't times when tears came to my eyes as I considered the plight of many of the characters and certain "no win" situations. Because Patrick Lanigan, the most reviled white-collar criminal of his time, knows something that no one else in the world knows.Grisham is dealing with perhaps the biggest scandal of the American system: the way that justice can be bought simply because state supreme justices are elected.

The Appeal - John Grisham - Books - Review - The New York Times The Appeal - John Grisham - Books - Review - The New York Times

To echo the comments of another goodreads member, Grisham should've stuck to writing an entertaining legal thriller rather than trying to make a statement.Chief Justice John Roberts' dissent warned that the Court's majority decision would have dire consequences for "public confidence in judicial impartiality. The author's contempt for the soulless super-rich, previously evident in The King of Torts, does produce some telling satirical moments. It's just that, at the age of thirteen, Theo is years from being a qualified lawyer - and Woody needs help right now .

The Appeal - John Grisham

Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, or the depiction of blatant sexism in Sinclair Lewis' The Job (or even in Ann Vickers, his thinly veiled roman a clef based on his relationship with Socialist activist Dorothy Thompson). But just when it seems as if his life has calmed down and gone back to the status quo, a new legal mystery comes to town, and this time it's personal. Two brothers witness the suicide of a mob lawyer, because of it one of them faces serious mental condition. From a hard-drinking, downtrodden divorce lawyer looking for pay-dirt, to a manipulative death row inmate with one last plea, Ford County features a vivid cast of attorneys, crooks, hustlers, and convicts. I think Grisham's most realistic characters have been Troy Phelan, the billionaire who commits suicide in The Testament, and the young, conservative Christian lawyer tapped to run for Supreme Court Judge in Mississippi in this novel.He helped me with the law, showed me his files, took me to death row, and toured me around the vast state penitentiary known simply as Parchman. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who also so happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddie. Because Troy Phelan’s new will names a sole surprise heir to his eleven-billion-dollar fortune: a mysterious woman named Rachel Lane, a missionary living deep in the jungles of Brazil. A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Oh, what a marvelous entrance into the bank’s boardroom he would choreograph first thing in the morning.