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The Appeal (Random House Large Print (Cloth/Paper)) | 
| Author: John Grisham
Publisher: Random House Large Print
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $18.45
You Save: $9.50 (34%)
Rating:  515 reviews
Sales Rank: 285335
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0739327666
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739327661
Publication Date: January 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Amazon.com Review
As the author of twenty bestselling books, John Grisham has set the standard for legal thrillers since the debut of The Firm in 1991. Enjoy this Q&A--as well as a personal note to Amazon readers--from John Grisham. 1. Your new novel starts off where most courtroom dramas end--with the verdict. Where did you get the idea to reverse the usual order of events this time around?
The actual trial is not a terribly significant part of the story. Most all of the action and intrigue begins after the trial is over, with the verdict and the subsequent appeal.
2. The Appeal overtly suggests that elected judges can be bought. If the novel is meant as a cautionary tale, what's next--the Presidential primaries?
Why not? Over one billion dollars will be spent next year in the Presidential primaries and general election. With that kind of money floating around, anything can be bought.
3. Speaking of electoral politics, you've been more vocal recently about your political views ... first supporting Jim Webb for Senate and now endorsing Hillary Clinton for the White House. Have you given any thought to running for office yourself?
No. I made that mistake 25 years ago, and promised myself I would never do it again. I enjoy watching and participating in politics from the sidelines, but it's best to keep some distance.
4. This is your first legal thriller in three years. How did it feel to get back to the genre that started it all, and can fans expect another thriller from you next year?
I still enjoy writing the legal thrillers, and don't plan to get too far away from them. Obviously, they have been very good to me, and they remain popular. I plan to write one a year for the next several years.
5. Your nonfiction book The Innocent Man continues to be a bestseller in paperback. In your ongoing work with The Innocence Project, have you come across another story of the wrongfully convicted that begs to be written as nonfiction?
There are literally hundreds of great stories out there about wrongfully convicted defendants. I am continually astounded by these stories, and I resist the temptation to take the plunge again into non-fiction.
6. What's on your bedside reading list at the moment?
1. The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
2. Eric Clapton's autobiography
3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
Product Description
In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.
Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided?
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.
The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave listeners unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 510 more reviews...
 Dirty Elections, Big Money, Corrupt Politicians Now Take Grisham's Center Stage For Urgent Moral Issues February 2, 2008
187 out of 235 found this review helpful
John Grisham will be ending his absence from the New York Times Best Seller's List (fiction) with the arrival "The Appeal." Grisham's first legal thriller since the Broker (2005) is a gripping and compelling read that will be hard to put down. It is also timely since it highlights the underbelly of today's election politics.
The story centers on a small Mississippi law firm who wins a big verdict over a chemical giant, Krane, that has spread carcinogenic pollutants. Krane, fearful that this verdict, if not overturned, would set a precedent that would eventually destroy it, goes into action. It files an appeal that will find its way to the state supreme court, and hires a "dirty tricks" firm to unseat a sitting justice believe to be unfriendly. This is a viable strategy since Mississippi elects their Supreme Court justices and 69% of its voters know little about the court's candidates.
The "Appeal" provides a believable primer on how to rig an election - pick a victim; promote an unknown candidate with no visible record; and ambush the victim by painting him/her as a extreme ideologue (this liberal judge will destroy the family). Done well...and the election process is subverted.
This is Grisham's thirteenth legal thriller since "A Time to Kill" which was published in 1989. He has been a master at putting urgent moral issues on center stage for all to consider. He has succeeded again in "The Appeal."
 Much ado about nothing March 22, 2008
115 out of 131 found this review helpful
I've just finished reading more than 250 pages of filler with nothing worth mentioning at the end of it all, except that the ending "majorly" sucked.
Essentially a sordid tale of big business and politics vs. big verdicts and class action lawsuits, it begins nicely, and gathers steam, then proceeds to continue blowing hot air at the reader until the unsatisfactory quickie ending.
While there's some food for thought regarding how the legal, political, religious and business arenas may all be connected, there's more garnish than meat in a story which could have been cut by about 100 pages of the filler, and sweetened with about 50 more pages of conclusion for dessert.
Short Attention Span Summary (SASS)
1.Large company dumps chemicals in rural community
2.Water changes color
3.People get sick
4.Some die
5.Small law firm files lawsuit
6.Large verdict awarded
7.Big business takes over
8.Money talks
9.Once again, Grisham gets tired of his own rambling and wraps up story in indecent haste leaving most of his ends dangling
10.His ends aren't pretty
I'd like to sue for 50% of my money back, plus loss of productive time, legal costs and mental trauma, and also for punitive damages, but I guess I'd lose on appeal.
Rated: 2.5 stars for half of a good book
The Innocent Man
Amanda Richards, March 21, 2008
Cardboard characters, I'm so eeevil villain February 8, 2008
100 out of 120 found this review helpful
Evil uncaring chemical baron Carl Trudeau's company has been poisoning the city of Bowmore's drinking water for years. After people start coming down with cancer and related ailments, the company cuts and runs to Mexico leaving hundreds of people ill and dying and the ground water contaminated. A scrappy altruistic attorney couple(the Paytons) sues Krane on behalf of a widowed client and wins a sizeable settlement. Carl Trudeau chooses to fight back, using his deep pockets and political connections.
I wanted to like this story, but I felt the good guy characters-particularly the attorneys -(the Paytons), were annoying. They were a little too perfect, a little too altruistic... It was very saccharine. The Paytons were both such Mary Sue's I didn't identify with them at all. Ironically, I liked the antics of the evil villains more because at least their plots and plans were entertaining.
Overall this was a decent book, but I found the simplistic character development aggravating.
 Entertaining and Informative February 8, 2008
38 out of 55 found this review helpful
It is obvious that John Grisham is up to more than spinning a fine yarn in this, his most recent legal novel. A former practicing trial lawyer in Mississippi, the setting for most of the story, as well as a member of the state legislature, Grisham is apparently, and quite rightly, concerned about a recent phenomenon relative to state supreme courts. As the novel illustrates, this is the increasing tactic of large business and ideological groups sweeping into various states and unloading large resources in elections for state supreme court justices--still not an uncommon way in which they are selected. Some states have adopted the so-called "Missouri system" where an expert panel recommends a slate of names to the governor, who must nominate one of the names, the individual serves a short term, and then stands for retention on a non-partisan basis. A simple majority of yes votes suffices to keep the judge in office for a full term.
But in Mississippi, and a number of other states, anyone can run in a competitive election for a seat on the state court. I expect this is particularly a hot issue in Mississippi, since it is the headquarters for gigantic tort recoveries in individual and class action suits returned by sympathetic juries. Grisham's previous novel, "King of Torts," was full of insights on this phenomenon. In the novel, business and ideological groups dissatisfied with the state court's decisions combine to run a candidate they pick and believe will be sympathetic to their viewpoints in rendering decisions. The target is a female Justice, by no means super liberal or extreme by any measure--but that is before the millions of dollars invested in campaign propaganda distort her record. The novel is designed to exhibit several of the major problems with this system: the potential for extraneous "hot button" issues to be injected into the campaign; the disparity in funds between judges and interest/business groups seeking to dislodge them; will judges render decisions based upon what they feel voters will like?; could judges who receive financial support from groups ignore that fact when rendering decisions that impact upon them?; will this tactic emasculate the tort law system that has "cleaned up a lot of bad products and protected a lot of people"?(p. 337)
So, while there is some serious food for thought in the book, it is also a solid novel well in the tradition of Grisham's other books: full of suspense; fast moving; and well written. I was not wild about the ending, but found it interesting that goodness and justice did not triumph as they often end up doing in novels. This one is more realistic.
Grisham's Back...Or is He? January 29, 2008
36 out of 45 found this review helpful
Grisham is back to his roots with a return to legal drama in "The Appeal." The question is though, is he really back? "The Appeal" does not quite make a return to the same idiom that Grisham made his own with early classics like "The Client," "The Pelican Brief" or "The Firm." By comparison, I would put "The Appeal" in the grouping with "The Chamber," and "The Runaway Jury," the legal high-wire acts that have something to say about politics, life, and the quasi-legal/quasi-political space they occupy.
"The Appeal" focuses on the high-stakes game of judicial appeals by following the appeal of a mega-million dollar toxic tort verdict that figures to destroy a chemical corporation and shake up Wall Street. But, its a lot cheaper for Krane Chemical to buy a Mississippi election (MS elects judges) than it is to pay the judgment, and if the right judge gets elected then the jury verdict at trial is moot.
And that's politics, Grisham seems to be saying. Of course, judicial seats and funny business were the driving force behind "The Pelican Brief." Some similarities exist: a party with an interest in a particular case takes the system into their own hands through political connections, dirty tricks, and (in "Pelican") murder.
But, this is a book steps away from that earlier Grisham tome, away from the worlds of David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, and the rest. Where "Pelican" belonged in that other category of formulaic fiction that relies on well-trod and overarching portraits of Washington, politicians, and high-stakes business that seem (whatever subtext may be lingering) to be designed to entertain; here, Grisham clearly has something stuck in his craw, he thinks something is rotten and he wants to expose it. There are no mobbed-up corporate firms, international assasins, or KKK murderers. The villians here are political spin-doctors, campaign wonks, and board room raiders.
This time, it is political. Or, maybe, Grisham just loves personal injury lawyers (aka "trial" lawyers) -- contrast his very sympathetic protagonist in "The King of Torts" with the pictures he has painted of sharks in suits from "The Firm," louses in "The Brethren," and small-time nickel and dimers in "The Client" and "The Rainmaker."
That type of characterization has always been something of a weakness of Grisham's, relying too heavily on emblematic types (i.e., Denton Voyles - the G-Man, Fletcher Coal - the operative, Khamel - the assassin) that are familiar to any reader from go: requiring no development and acquiring no depth. But, in "The Appeal," Grisham returns to his roots with some really winning characterization. Like the development of the McDeeres in "The Firm," or Reggie Love in "The Client," the couple that serves as plaintiff's co-counsel on the central case of the book are developed in more depth - a real strength in "The Appeal." But again here, he takes a very friendly - and I would say unpopular - view of pi attorneys.
All in all, I would say to prepare for a more mature Grisham, whether that becomes less appealing or unpalatable to some remains to be seen. This book - coming as it does on the heels of "Skipping Christmas," "Playing for Pizza," "The Bleachers," and "The Innocent Man" - is reflective of an author who has decided to embark on a different course. There is little of the sensational in "The Appeal," in fact, it embellishes the naturalistic element that some of his earlier work hinted at. This is nitty gritty: no glitz, no glamour...save a few gratuitous Gulfstream jets.
Whatever else it may be, this is Grisham's most realistic (that is to say in terms of literary style - not necessarily plausibility) fiction work. But, it still reads quickly and promises to move off of shelves even more quickly.
JAW
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