Book Review: The Appeal: John Grisham

Sooooo... despite everything that I say about being a pretentious reader it appears I have read three John Grisham books in the last year so... what kind of fool am I and how ashamed am I? Fairly. But surprisingly I am not extremely embarrassed. Likely a metaphor for my life where I really enjoy claptrap and connived, stretched, but easy to read plots. I like things easy and simple.

But this book. This book was really, really intriguing for a number of reasons. I will not wax on and on about how average Grisham is and how it is lowest common denominator literature... it is all true. But who really cares. It is awesome and this particular book is a much needed read.

Recently they failed in another attempt in beautiful Missouri to sack our Missouri Courts Plan where we have a committee put together a panel and the governor needs to pick one from the panel. This last year there was evidently, allegedly some deal making which resulted in a panel where the governor had no choice and it pissed him, and big business and evidently conservative Christians (of which oddly I still consider myself) off. You see most other states elect all their judges leading to campaigns and fund raising and money. And these judges have to stand for election every few years for another campaign and more money. Our plan of appointed judges is not perfect but once they are in, they are in and cannot be bought or sold. They might have bias but at least not bought and paid for bias... anyway....
So in this book we have the typical villains, big corporation raping the environment and killing a lot of people. A small town couple practicing law in Mississippi takes them on and wins but alas... there is the appeal. The judgment is for the tens of millions and there are hundreds of cases which will be filed if the verdict stands. And... the appeal takes a while to percolate through the system giving the big corporation and their fixers plenty of time to find a conservative judge they can get elected in order to shift the deeply divided appeals court in their direction. We meet all the people. The brave lawyers, the nobly suffering injured people and the vicious hustlers and fixers.

All the characters are drawn sharply and there is not much effort that needs to be exerted to figure out good guys and bad guys. As the case winds it’s way through the system we see the fixers work their magic finding a good looking young defense lawyer from a good church with absolutely no distinguishing marks or record for anyone to crucify him over. He runs, and flies around the State on a wave of money against a much beleaguered female appellate court judge and as the appeal nears hitting the court...

A lot of things happen. Surprisingly none of them good. I have always said that grisham does not know how to end a legal book. As this one has a lot of disasters and you wonder about how long it is going to take to wind it up with the requisite happy ending. The calamities make you squirm and twist and get anxious about how the good guys can win and he hits a nice (very troubling) plot device at the end which frankly just seems over the top but... he ends this one well, and not happily... but with a lesson which is a great one.

grisham is heavy handed with his political views but, since they seem to align with mine. .. thats fine. I highly recommend this one folks. It will make you think and you can breeze through it in a few days at worst.

9 Slingers on the 10 scale.