Gargoyle Reads

John Grisham is Back with Gray Mountain



John Grisham has been churning out legal thrillers on a regular basis for years.  Although I have liked some of them, I haven't really loved a Grisham novel since A Time to Die.  Finally, he has written another really great novel.

It's 2008, and Samantha Kofer is pulling in the big bucks in a high-pressure job with a huge Wall Street firm.  Her work is mind-numbingly dull, but she believes there is real opportunity for advancement if she keeps working nights and weekends.  Then, the world of finance comes tumbling down.  Samantha is one of hundreds of young attorneys laid off due to the financial collapse.  Her firm makes her an offer: if she will work for free for one year for a non-profit, they will hold her job and reinstate her when the economy turns around.  Samantha isn't too worried; she has saved quite a bit.  She half-heartedly applies for some of the positions with non-profits recommended by her firm.  Time after time, she is told that the position has already been filled.  Finally, she gets an opportunity with a small legal aid group in a tiny town in the heart of Appalachia.

Samantha's new firm deals mainly with trying to help miners and their families.  Simple divorces, wills, and other legal paperwork take up a great deal of their time, but the true heart of the firm is trying to help miners receive the black lung benefits they are entitled to.  Samantha becomes friends with a young attorney who is fighting the mining companies who are strip mining, destroying the land, and poisoning the water for miles around.  When he dies under suspicious circumstances, she finds herself in a life or death battle with big corporations.

The thriller part is as good as anything Grisham has written before.  What sets this book aside from his usual work is the complex character at the center of the story.  Samantha grows, changes, and becomes a better human being through her experiences in rural Virginia.  She learns a great deal about the law and life.  I hope she will appear in another Grisham novel sometime soon.