The Appeal-John Grisham

The Appeal
John Grisham
Delta, Nov 2008, $14.00
ISBN: 9780385342926

The shocking verdict is heard in Jackson, Manhattan and DC when a Mississippi jury finds Krane Chemical guilty of dumping carcinogenic waste into the local water supply leading to a “cancer cluster”. Widow Jeannette Baker and her trial layers are awarded $41 million in punitive damages, but she knows that means little since her husband and their child died from their little town being turned into a toxic dump; her lawyers are gratified because they sunk a half of a million dollars into the case and defeat may have meant bankruptcy.

Krane appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, but the Wall St based CEO shark Carl Trudeau does not want a second failure. Judicial elections are coming soon and he plans to insure favorable judges sit on the court. He understands it will cost him a few million, but he believes a million here and a million there to buy judicial loyalty is loose change; in his mind it’s billions before he believes we are talking real money. He has picked his prime target and quickly has him signed, sealed, and delivered.

This exciting legal thriller focuses on a real issue in the American political system, the election of judges who are politicians looking for donations to support their election bids. Thus the so-called independent judicial system adhering to laws is actually a series of activist judges regardless of party affiliation bought and sold by the highest bidding corporations. In that environs it is ironic that trial lawyers and punitive settlements are attacked but not the worst that capitalism can buy. Exciting and fast-paced from the onset with the jury ruling coming very early, fans will enjoy John Grisham’s fine tale although the villains are so deliberately hyperbolic stereotyped they turn into caricatures as the star is the premise of buying judges through election donations.

Harriet Klausner