WIN A SIGNED COPY
OF JOHN GRISHAM'S NEW BOOK THE APPEAL
The jury was ready.
After forty-two hours of deliberations that followed seventy-one
days of trial that
included 530 hours of testimony from four dozen witnesses, and after
a lifetime of sitting silently as the lawyers haggled and the judge
lectured and the spectators watched like hawks for telltale signs,
the jury was ready. Locked away in the jury room, secluded and
secure, ten of them proudly signed their names to the verdict while
the other two pouted in their corners, detached and miserable in
their dissension. There were hugs and smiles and no small measure of
self-congratulation because they had survived this little war and
could now march proudly back into the arena with a decision they had
rescued through sheer determination and the dogged pursuit of
compromise. Their ordeal was over; their civic duty complete. They
had served above and beyond. They were ready.
The foreman knocked on the door and rustled Uncle Joe from his
slumbers. Uncle Joe, the ancient bailiff, had guarded them while he
also arranged their meals, heard their complaints, and quietly
slipped their messages to the judge. In his younger years, back when
his hearing was better, Uncle Joe was rumored to also eavesdrop on
his juries through a ?imsy pine door he and he alone had selected
and installed. But his listening days were over, and, as he had
con?ded to no one but his wife, after the ordeal of this particular
trial he might just hang up his old pistol once and for all. The
strain of controlling justice was wearing him down.
--From Chapter One of The Appeal
Politics has always been a dirty game.
Now justice is, too.
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 readers unable
to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the
same way ever again.
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