The Appeal - John Grisham

After a dismal detour into non-legal writing with Playing for Pizza, Grisham is back to what he does best. The Appeal is a bit of A Civil Action meets Grisham's prior novel King of Torts. After dumping toxic waste into the drinking water of a small town for years, suddenly its residents find that the their cancer rate is 15 times the national average. The book opens with a large punitive damages verdict against the company. The company immediately appeals, and behind the scenes, the conservative machine begins working to ensure that a right-minded individual finds his way onto the state Supreme Court. Grisham comes out swinging with this book, which I found much better written than most of his others. While the main focus of the book condemns the buying of publically-elected judges, Grisham also manages to denounce big business, defense lawyers, and plaintiff's lawyers who handle class actions. He also questions religious organizations who campaign in the name of values, and anyone who campaigns on hot-button issues but utterly fails to ever walk a step in the shoes of the people whose votes they hope to win. I could see many readers thinking Grisham has finally gone off the deep end with this one - and promoting his own liberal-agenda, but I thought it was finely done and one of his best works to date.