Product Description

For the first time since "A Time to Kill", Grisham returns to Ford County, Mississippi - a place rich in colourful characters and dark family secrets. This time he tells the story of a dying judge who leaves his dissolute sons three million dollars in used bank notes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51215 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-01
• Released on: 2002-11-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the common decencies of a strain of American commercial story-telling in literature and film that we often link to the work of Frank Capra or O Henry. He is not afraid of parable or of setting up situations that are at once archetypal and attractively specific. This is a tale of two brothers--one is righteous, more or less, and one is not--and a question of their inheritance. Ancient Mississippi judge Atlee summons his two sons to his deathbed, but dies before he can explain himself, leaving Ray, who arrives on time unlike his drunkard brother Forest with the difficult problem of the three million dollars in used notes which are lying around the house in shoe-boxes. Ray worries about his father's posthumous reputation, about the Inland Revenue Service and about how quickly Forrest could drink himself to death with unlimited funds.

Grisham is very acute indeed on how the best of intentions lead Ray not to any significant crime or atrocity but to quietly unconscionable behaviour. And then he realises he is being followed... Grisham can build suspense out of remarkably little and has a real gift for understanding the quiet anxieties of an ordinary man. --Roz Kaveney

Praise for The Summons
‘Classic Grisham’ The Times

Praise for The Summons
‘John Grisham is a copper-bottomed promise of reliable story-telling… the legal trappings are as persuasive as ever’ The Independent

Customer Reviews

My First Grisham will not be the last....
I'm unsure why this book has gotten such terrible previous reviews - OK, I have no Grisham comparison (as this was my time time reading him) but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel.

The story carried me along and kept me guessing, while the characters were engaging and uncomplecated (which can often be the bookfall of so many books - too many characters and not enough story to support them all). I personally found the leisurely pace pleasant and found the ending quite interesting and alittle unexpected.

I admit that there wasn't huge amounts to the story, it was very one-themed, but the overall concept was fun and twisted and turned nicely throughout. My only single complaint would be that it was written like a movie script - you could almost imagine it on the 'big screen', it would translate perfectly, which is perhaps why it wasn't too challenging on the whole.

This was my first Grisham and won't be my last, however that said I won't be going out of my way to purchase his latest read but will grab an earlier book if I see one in my local charity shop!!

Summons Not Right With This Book
Ray Atlee receives a letter from his father Judge Atlee to return to his home town so that they can discuss the Judge's will. On arriving Ray is in for more than one big surprise, not only does he find his father dead, but also over $3 million in unmarked bills hidden in the house. What is Ray going to do? Before spending any of the money he decides to investigate where it came from. Will he be able to keep the money secret from his addict brother and does someone already know?

'The Summons' is by no means Grisham's best novel and suffers from a lack of pace and direction. Throughout the book we follow Ray as he investigates the moneys origins, only for the conclusion to leave you wanting a better explanation. For the majority of the book you are entertained by the story and the tension is pretty good, it is just a shame that the final section ruins the experience somewhat. I was impressed with the moral quandary that the Ray was put under, but this again was counteracted by Grisham's obsession with the good ol' South mentality that can be a little cloying at times.

A Law School Hypothetical Problem Turned into a Slow-Moving Novel
One of the problems of being a lawyer is that you can start to think like one all too much of the time. For those who are most fascinated by the law, the favorite intellectual game is to pose ever more complex scenarios to test what is the right solution. John Grisham clearly thought he was writing a law school hypothetical problem when he penned this novel . . . which will leave those who aren't lawyers puzzled, troubled, and disgruntled.

From a legal and personal perspective, this book raises some nice ethical questions:

1. What is the obligation to protect the reputation and memory of a deceased person?

2. How should an addict be protected from hurting himself?

3. How far should potentially illegal activities be pursued by an attorney who is an executor of an estate?

4. How should protecting property be weighed against protecting life?

5. Can you overcome the temptation to run off with something that no one knows you have found?

Attorney and law professor Ray Atlee is faced with all of those issues and more when he returns home to find his father dead and the living room filled with stationery boxes bursting with cash. First, he wants to know if the cash is counterfeit or part of some illegal activity. Second, he is concerned that his brother not go on a long cocaine-sniffing holiday from which he might not survive. Third, he's afraid someone will walk off with the money. Fourth, he begins to think how nice it would be to avoid paying taxes on the money. Fifth, he dreams about having it all to himself.

But life isn't that simple. Someone else seems to know about the money, and they are getting aggressive about retrieving it. What will Ray do?

There's supposed to be a mystery here, but parts of it are pretty transparent. What isn't transparent eventually turns out to be far-fetched.

Except for tickling my memories of property class hypotheticals, I didn't find much to recommend this book. If you do decide to read it, I suggest that you listen instead to the Recorded Books reading by Michael Beck who makes a lot of the silliness sound more interesting.