John Grisham’s “The Appeal” directly answers the question “Can elections be rigged?”.
However, it does not stop at that, it further goes on to explain step-by-step: building an agenda, budget, sources for the budget, timing the campaigns, chosing the right winning message, countering the opponents message, number of messages, etc. All this within a framework of a gripping thriller about a verdict that has been passed. With his battery of novels that have legal cases as their backdrop, who better than Mr. Grisham knows how legal and political and legal battles are played and won. He is just too good at it.
Unlike his other novels, where a lawsuit verdict is often the climax, in this novel the verdict is out in the 1st 10 pages or so. The climax is whether the appeal will be won or not; pretty much raising the bar of his novels.
A small boutique law-firm run by the Paytons has won a Mississippi verdict against Krane Chemical Co. that has dumped carcinogenic pollutants in a nearby town. However, this isn’t the end of the world. Krane’s CEO, Carl Trudeau is considering an appeal against this verdict and will resort to "move-the-world" kind of tactics to take on the Paytons.
The problem for Krane is not just this case, it is those cases they will lose thereafter if they do not insulate themselves from this case.
To win the appeal Krane needs the Mississippi Supreme Court “on its side”. The only way to do this is to elect a judge who will vote in favour of Krane.
What follows, is a series of events where a corrupt senator meets Carl Trudeau and wins his confidence to elect “their kind” of candidate to the Supreme Court. The senator connects the CEO with a firm(Troy-Hogan) that has a history/record of running successful “winning” election campaigns. To be precise, they specialize in **taking out a Supreme Court judge if he/she was not friendly to “their” client, and electing another one who is sure to support the client.
*Job defined! Here we go:
Assess the Paytons, find out who in the Court is the most vulnerable of losing, chose a candidate to elect, and get him to vote in favour of Krane and WIN.
Assessing the Paytons is easy, they are bankrupt and a small push here and there and they are on the edge. Sheila McCarthy is the target candidate to be removed. Why? She is liberal and “soft on crime”, therefore to will be easy to generate negativity towards her by creating and misrepresenting issues of Church and homosexuality. Candidate to elect is Ron Frisk, a newcomer in politics, clean chit in all his previous dealings, high on ambitions, and therefore easy to direct and mould.
Grisham, makes it quite evident that campaign money in millions of dollars is not a problem for Try-Hogan and there fore not a problem for Ron Frisk. It is a problem for Sheila, who has not much political clout to support her campaign. Troy-Hogan’s twist in the setting is another candidate who is unlikely to be elected but can sure take the limelight away from Sheila.
Thus follows the campaign, with twists and turns, live commentary, TV analysis, popularity meters, vote counts all thrown in to create one of the best legal-fiction thriller from Grisham.
Two things, which are debatable, that jumps out of the novel are:
Money can win elections, judicial and presidential included.
Should religion have a say in administration?(in any country)
Thanks for taking time out to read the review.
Happy reading