The Appeal (John Grisham) | 
| Author: John Grisham
Creator: Michael Beck
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
Buy New: $15.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  335 reviews
Sales Rank: 6865
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 10
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 6 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0739316532
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739316535
ASIN: 0739316532
Publication Date: January 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: unopened
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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 330 more reviews...
 Interesting and thought provoking . . May 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
While this was written as a cautionary tale, it really makes one sit up and take notice. All written is possible and on some fronts, highly probable. Scary. A good read, especially in a presidential election year. Makes you really take notice of things. Best Grisham in a while.
 Disappointing May 11, 2008
Disappointing to say the least. I have been a John Grisham fan since The Firm but his books are getting more mundane by the year. I do not think I will read another one.
 2.5 stars May 5, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Grisham, after quite a few boring and tedious 'personal' novels, is back on familiar turf with the legal drama The Appeal. Grisham's books are often about the small guy against the big old mean corporation. I stopped reading his court dramas a long while back because they were all becoming too much alike, and the writing was often very poor. Well Grisham is almost back on track with The Appeal, even if the book falls short in the end.
I really enjoyed the book's first chapter. A big corporation is found guilty of poisoning a small town's water source, which causes many to die of cancer. The big mean old corporation, not wanting to create a precedent with the verdict, will try and find a way to appeal the decision. The best way? Rig the appeal process of course. That's when the book starts getting long, often ridiculous at times. Instead of offering us a mystery, Grisham offers us a polotical election that will decide the outcome of the appeal. The characters that were introduced in the first chatper disappear, replaced by political figures and rich executives. It's almost as if the first chapter was an unfinished short story that was developped into a novel.
Yes the story is familiar grounds for Grisham, but I could see that he was trying to do something different with this novel. Instead of being a novel about the families and the people affected by the disaster, the book becomes of story of politics and of the rich getting richer. There really isn't any emotional punch to this story, which was much needed to elevate the story to the next level.
The dialogue is often unintentionally funny and the pacing is often off. After its first chapter, I was really expecting a good novel, like the ones Grisham used to write at the beginning of his career (I can't wait for him to go back to the heights of The Firm, A Time To Kill, The Rainmaker and The Partner). But because the characters are so paper-thin, and the emotional content just isn't there, The Appeal falls short in the end. This one could have, and should have, been much much better.
 The Pelican Brief, only without any murders May 5, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Another fine story from Grisham, with lots of juicy details about how the justice system really works.
Without giving anything away, the basic plot is: 1) Small-town lawyer wins a huge verdict against a pesticide manufacturer in Mississippi; 2) the manufacturer appeals the verdict to the State Supreme Court; 3) the Supreme Court usually votes 5-4 to uphold such verdicts; but 4) there's an election coming up, which the manufacturer's handpicked candidate has a good chance of winning; 5) which would tip the balance in the opposite direction.
So it's similar to the Pelican Brief (also very good, BTW), except this time the corporate tycoon uses political consultants, not hit-men, to try to change the make-up of the court.
In particular, I really liked the interplay of the multiple story-lines about the physical, emotional, and economic impact of living in a "cancer cluster" like the poor people in this story; the financial challenges that small-town lawyers face in litigation against major corporations; and the ups and downs of running a hard-fought political campaign, with both sides having their good days and bad days. Dirty tricks, of course, play an important part in the campaign, but it was also interesting to see how campaign managers could manipulate very different social groups with very different motivations into uniting behind a single candidate.
A great story, especially during the current campaign season.
Boring May 5, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book was more boring than my husband's legal briefs. I felt like I was reading a newspaper report. No character development; no suspense. Too many names, no personalities. Too many dollar figures. Too much talk about money. I had to force myself to skim the last thirty pages just to find out if the plaintiff ever got her money.
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