After his forays into thrillers (’Broker’), sports novels(’Bleachers’ and ’Playing for Pizza’) and non-fiction (’Innocent Man’), Grisham returns to the court room with ’The Appeal’. As usual, Grisham manages to conjure a thirlling courtroom drama. The story of a jury verdict that causes the afflicted party to try and fix the verdict is enthralling. The novel reveals Grisham’s mastery of courtroom procedures and political intrigues.
The manipulations of courts and the hold of big businesses over courts and politics is exposed in the novel. Everything about the novel is extremely believable and makes you feel disgusted about the legal system in the US (especially the concept of elected judges).
But parts of the novel seems to be a rehash of his old books. The novel starts from where ’The Runaway Jury’ stopped. The judge fixing plot is borrowed from ’Pelican Brief’. The small lawyer versus big corporation is borrowed from ’Rainmaker’ and the torts stories and the big businessman reminds you of ’The King of Torts’. But inspite of all this, the novel is simply unputdownable, you will definitely want to read it at one sitting.
The only big negative aspect of the novel is the ending. I will not reveal the ending, but I definitely did not enjoy it, I left let-down. And if you do not subscribe to Grisham’s liberal political views, some parts of the novel may make you squirm.
But overall, a great novel worth reading.