With Gray Mountain, John Grisham’s 27th published novel, the bestselling author once again delivers a book that will surprise and enthrall readers. Not only another gripping legal thriller from the master of the form, Gray Mountain is also, in many ways, a very different book from any that he’s written before. Grisham is exploring new territory, from […]
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. 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.
Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
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The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict—or reverse it.
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. 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.
Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
The Appeal
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. 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.
Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict—or reverse it.
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. 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.
Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
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Overview
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. 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.
Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict—or reverse it.
The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. 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.
Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780345532022 |
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Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 01/31/2012 |
Pages: | 496 |
Sales rank: | 100,338 |
Product dimensions: | 4.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.
Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.
When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.
John lives on a farm in central Virginia.
Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.
When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.
John lives on a farm in central Virginia.
Hometown:
Oxford, Mississippi, and Albemarle County, VirginiaDate of Birth:
February 8, 1955Place of Birth:
Jonesboro, ArkansasEducation:
B.S., Mississippi State, 1977; J.D., University of Mississippi, 1981Website:
http://www.jgrisham.comRead an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The jury was ready.
Somewhere near the top of a tall building in lower Manhattan, a panic-stricken young man barged into a serious meeting and whispered the urgent news to Mr. Carl Trudeau, who immediately lost interest in the issues on the table, stood abruptly, and said, "Looks like the jury has reached a verdict." He marched out of the room and down the hall to a vast corner suite, where he removed his jacket, loosened his tie, walked to a window, and gazed through the early darkness at the Hudson River in the distance. He waited, and as usual asked himself how, exactly, so much of his empire could rest upon the combined wisdom of twelve average people in backwater Mississippi. For a man who knew so much, that answer was still elusive.
Mr. Trudeau was still standing at the window, watching the last of the sun set far beyond New Jersey. Across the wide room Stu the assistant took the call and ventured forward a few steps before mustering the nerve to say, "Sir, that was from Hattiesburg. Three million in actual damages, thirty-eight in punitive." From the rear, there was a slight dip in the boss's shoulder, a quiet exhaling in frustration, then a mumbling of obscenities. Mr. Trudeau slowly turned around and glared at the assistant as if he just might shoot the messenger. "You sure you heard that right?" he asked, and Stu desperately wished he had not. "Yes, sir." Behind him the door was open. Bobby Ratzlaff appeared in a rush, out of breath, shocked and scared and looking for Mr. Trudeau. Ratzlaff was the chief in-house lawyer, and his neck would be the first on the chopping block. He was already sweating. "Get your boys here in five minutes," Mr. Trudeau growled, then turned back to his window.
The press conference materialized on the first floor of the courthouse. In two small groups, Wes and Mary Grace chatted patiently with reporters. Both gave the same answers to the same questions. No, the verdict was not a record for the state of Mississippi. Yes, they felt it was justified. No, it was not expected, not an award that large anyway. Certainly it would be appealed. Wes had great respect for Jared Kurtin, but not for his client. Their firm currently represented thirty other plaintiffs who were suing Krane Chemical. No, they did not expect to settle those cases. Yes, they were exhausted. After half an hour they finally begged off, and walked from the Forrest County Circuit Court building hand in hand, each lugging a heavy briefcase. They were photographed getting into their car and driving away. Alone, they said nothing. Four blocks, five, six. Ten minutes passed without a word. The car, a battered Ford Taurus with a million miles, at least one low tire, and the constant click of a sticking valve, drifted through the streets around the university. Wes spoke first. "What's one-third of forty-one million?" "Don't even think about it." "I'm not thinking about it. Just a joke." "Just drive." "Anyplace in particular?" "No." The Taurus ventured into the suburbs, going nowhere but certainly not going back to the office. They stayed far away from the neighborhood with the lovely home they had once owned. Reality slowly settled in as the numbness began to fade. A lawsuit they had reluctantly filed four years earlier had now been decided in a most dramatic fashion. An excruciating marathon was over, and though they had a temporary victory, the costs had been great. The wounds were raw, the battle scars still very fresh. The gas gauge showed less than a quarter of a tank, something that Wes would have barely noticed two years earlier. Now it was a much more serious matter. Back then he drove a BMW-Mary Grace had a Jaguar-and when he needed fuel, he simply pulled in to his favorite station and filled the tank with a credit card. He never saw the bills; they were handled by his bookkeeper. Now the credit cards were gone, as were the BMW and the Jaguar, and the same bookkeeper was working at half salary and doling out a few dollars in cash to keep the Payton firm just above the waterline. Mary Grace glanced at the gauge, too, a recently acquired habit. She noticed and remembered the price of everything-a gallon of gas, a loaf of bread, a half gallon of milk. She was the saver and he was the spender, but not too many years ago, when the clients were calling and the cases were settling, she had relaxed a bit too much and enjoyed their success. Saving and investing had not been a priority. They were young, the firm was growing, the future had no limits. Whatever she had managed to put into mutual funds had long since been devoured by the Baker case. An hour earlier they had been broke, on paper, with ruinous debts far outweighing whatever flimsy assets they might list. Now things were different. The liabilities had not gone away, but the black side of their balance sheet had certainly improved. Or had it? When might they see some or all of this wonderful verdict? Might Krane now offer a settlement? How long would the appeal take? How much time could they now devote to the rest of their practice? Neither wanted to ponder the questions that were haunting both of them. They were simply too tired and too relieved. For an eternity they had talked of little else, and now they talked about nothing. Tomorrow or the next day they could begin the debriefing. "We're almost out of gas," she said. No retort came to his weary mind, so Wes said, "What about dinner?" "Macaroni and cheese with the kids." The trial had not only drained them of their energy and assets; it had also burned away any excess weight they might have been carrying at the outset. Wes was down at least fifteen pounds, though he didn't know for sure because he hadn't stepped on the scale in months. Nor was he about to inquire into this delicate matter with his wife, but it was obvious she needed to eat. They had skipped many meals-breakfasts when they were scrambling to dress the kids and get them to school, lunches when one argued motions in Harrison's office while the other prepared for the next cross-examination, dinners when they worked until midnight and simply forgot to eat. PowerBars and energy drinks had kept them going. "Sounds great," he said, and turned left onto a street that would take them home.
Ratzlaff and two other lawyers took their seats at the sleek leather table in a corner of Mr. Trudeau's office suite. The walls were all glass and provided magnificent views of skyscrapers packed into the financial district, though no one was in the mood for scenery. Mr. Trudeau was on the phone across the room behind his chrome desk. The lawyers waited nervously. They had talked nonstop to the eyewitnesses down in Mississippi but still had few answers. The boss finished his phone conversation and strode purposefully across the room. "What happened?" he snapped. "An hour ago you guys were downright cocky. Now we got our asses handed to us. What happened?" He sat down and glared at Ratzlaff. "Trial by jury. It's full of risks," Ratzlaff said. "I've been through trials, plenty of them, and I usually win. I thought we were paying the best shysters in the business. The best mouthpieces money can buy. We spared no expense, right?" "Oh yes. We paid dearly. Still paying." Mr. Trudeau slapped the table and barked, "What went wrong?!" Well, Ratzlaff thought to himself and wanted to say aloud except that he very much treasured his job, let's start with the fact that our company built a pesticide plant in Podunk, Mississippi, because the land and labor were dirt cheap, then we spent the next thirty years dumping chemicals and waste into the ground and into the rivers, quite illegally of course, and we contaminated the drinking water until it tasted like spoiled milk, which, as bad as it was, wasn't the worst part, because then people started dying of cancer and leukemia. That, Mr. Boss and Mr. CEO and Mr. Corporate Raider, is exactly what went wrong. "The lawyers feel good about the appeal," Ratzlaff said instead, without much conviction. "Oh, that's just super. Right now I really trust these lawyers. Where did you find these clowns?" "They're the best, okay?" "Sure. And let's just explain to the press that we're ecstatic about our appeal and perhaps our stock won't crash tomorrow. Is that what you're saying?" "We can spin it," Ratzlaff said. The other two lawyers were glancing at the glass walls. Who wanted to be the first to jump? One of Mr. Trudeau's cell phones rang and he snatched it off the table. "Hi, honey," he said as he stood and walked away. It was (the third) Mrs. Trudeau, the latest trophy, a deadly young woman whom Ratzlaff and everyone else at the company avoided at all costs. Her husband was whispering, then said goodbye. He walked to a window near the lawyers and gazed at the sparkling towers around him. "Bobby," he said without looking, "do you have any idea where the jury got the figure of thirty-eight million for punitive damages?" "Not right offhand." "Of course you don't. For the first nine months of this year, Krane has averaged thirty-eight million a month in profits. A bunch of ignorant rednecks who collectively couldn't earn a hundred grand a year, and they sit there like gods taking from the rich and giving to the poor." "We still have the money, Carl," Ratzlaff said. "It'll be years before a dime changes hands, if, in fact, that ever happens." "Great! Spin that to the wolves tomorrow while our stock goes down the drain." Ratzlaff shut up and slumped in his chair. The other two lawyers were not about to utter a sound. Mr. Trudeau was pacing dramatically. "Forty-one million dollars. And there are how many other cases out there, Bobby? Did someone say two hundred, three hundred? Well, if there were three hundred this morning, there will be three thousand tomorrow morning. Every redneck in south Mississippi with a fever blister will now claim to have sipped the magic brew from Bowmore. Every two-bit ambulance chaser with a law degree is driving there now to sign up clients. This wasn't supposed to happen, Bobby. You assured me." Ratzlaff had a memo under lock and key. It was eight years old and had been prepared under his supervision. It ran for a hundred pages and described in gruesome detail the company's illegal dumping of toxic waste at the Bowmore plant. It summarized the company's elaborate efforts to hide the dumping, to dupe the Environmental Protection Agency, and to buy off the politicians at the local, state, and federal level. It recommended a clandestine but effective cleanup of the waste site, at a cost of some $50 million. It begged anyone who read it to stop the dumping. And, most important at this critical moment, it predicted a bad verdict someday in a courtroom. Only luck and a flagrant disregard for the rules of civil procedure had allowed Ratzlaff to keep the memo a secret. Mr. Trudeau had been given a copy of it eight years earlier, though he now denied he'd ever seen it. Ratzlaff was tempted to dust it off now and read a few selected passages, but, again, he treasured his job. Mr. Trudeau walked to the table, placed both palms flat on the Italian leather, glared at Bobby Ratzlaff, and said, "I swear to you, it will never happen. Not one dime of our hard-earned profits will ever get into the hands of those trailer park peasants." The three lawyers stared at their boss, whose eyes were narrow and glowing. He was breathing fire, and finished by saying, "If I have to bankrupt it or break it into fifteen pieces, I swear to you on my mother's grave that not one dime of Krane's money will ever be touched by those ignorant people." And with that promise, he walked across the Persian rug, lifted his jacket from a rack, and left the office. Excerpted from THE APPEAL by John Grisham. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © 2008 by Belfry Holdings, Inc.
Interviews
An Interview with John Grisham
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. 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. 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. 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. 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 nonfiction. What's on your bedside reading list at the moment? 1. The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin; 2. Eric Clapton's autobiography; and 3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck.From the B&N Reads Blog
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