The Appeal

by: John Grisham

Published by: Doubleday

Reviewed by Mark Owen

John Grisham is at the top of his game once again with The Appeal. The novel is written in his classic matter-of-fact tone that drips with thick Southern sarcasm. Readers can’t help but rip through the entertaining and sometimes frightening book.

A nasty corporation run by a greedy elitist has polluted a Mississippi backwater town. The chemicals they’ve illegally dumped for years have leached into the aquifer and into the townsfolk, killing enough of them to earn the place the moniker: Cancer County. A huge lawsuit is won by near-broke trial lawyers for one of the unfortunate victims, but the nefarious company is going to appeal to the state supreme court.

Now the fun starts. It turns out that Mississippi elects its Supreme Court judges, and the out-of-pocket cost for big business to bankroll a candidate is far less than the jury’s award. The evil machinery of companies and lobbyists pick a perfect family man and run a wild, mudslinging election in hope of getting their corporate boy on the court. What hangs in the balance, what they hope to achieve, is a clear reversal of the verdict and punitive award.

Slimy politicians are in on the deal, with a stodgy senator backing the company. And while the election is running, the head of the polluting corporation is manipulating his own company’s common stock, driving it down and buying it up, with plans to get richer than ever if and when the verdict falls his way. Will it?

The Appeal is one of the best books I’ve read this year. The real world is horrifically reproduced in the text, where justice like business is equally buyable. Even the local churches get into the electoral fray. It’s a sad statement about America, but a read well worth the time. I’m tempted to say this is John Grisham’s best book ever.

Armchair Interviews says: Another 5-star offering from Grisham.

Author’s Web site: http://www.JGrisham.com