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Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father's small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn't want, even if it's a job most law students can only dream about....
The incomparable master of the legal thriller takes us deeper into the labyrinth that is the American justice system, always drawing us in with an irresistible hook, pulling the thread of tension tighter and tighter, and then knocking us out with a conclusion that's never "by the book". Maybe that's why, after more than 20 years of consecutive number-one New York Times best sellers, a new novel by America's favorite storyteller is still a major publishing event.
Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.... Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm: 26-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.
Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. firm with 800 lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was 3 years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience. But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Also available abridged.
Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father's small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn't want, even if it's a job most law students can only dream about....
The incomparable master of the legal thriller takes us deeper into the labyrinth that is the American justice system, always drawing us in with an irresistible hook, pulling the thread of tension tighter and tighter, and then knocking us out with a conclusion that's never "by the book". Maybe that's why, after more than 20 years of consecutive number-one New York Times best sellers, a new novel by America's favorite storyteller is still a major publishing event.
Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.... Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm: 26-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.
Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. firm with 800 lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was 3 years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience. But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Also available abridged.
John Grisham's first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.
Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a 10-year-old black girl is shattered by 2 drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her father acquires an assault riffle - and takes justice into his own outraged hands.
It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a joy or a prayer...except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it.
From a short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial. Then he fled. Six weeks later, a fortune was stolen from his ex-law firm's offshore account.
The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer's career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track - until the recession hits and she gets downsized, furloughed, escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is one of the "lucky" associates. She's offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she'd get her old job back. In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about.
Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die. His potential heirs, to no one's surprise - especially Troy's - are circling like vultures. But Troy shocks them all when he leaves his fortune to an estranged, illegitimate daughter.
Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a 10-year-old black girl is shattered by 2 drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her father acquires an assault riffle - and takes justice into his own outraged hands.
In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched...
Sebastian Rudd, rogue lawyer, defends people other lawyers won't go near. It's controversial and dangerous work, which is why Sebastian needs his bodyguard/assistant/sidekick, Partner. So if Sebastian is just about the most unpopular lawyer in town, why is Partner so loyal to him? How did they meet? And what's the real story of this man of few words who's as good with a gun as he is with the law? The surprising answers are all in Partners.
As Clay Carter digs into the background of his client, a young man charged with a random street killing, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life - that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession's newest king of torts...
Mark, Todd, and Zola came to law school to change the world, to make it a better place. But now, as third-year students, these close friends realize they have been duped. They all borrowed heavily to attend a third-tier, for-profit law school so mediocre that its graduates rarely pass the bar exam, let alone get good jobs. And when they learn that their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge-fund operator who also happens to own a bank specializing in student loans, the three know they have been caught up in The Great Law School Scam.
A startling and original courtroom drama from New York Times best seller John Grisham that is the prequel to his newest legal thriller, The Whistler. A judge's first murder trial. A defense attorney in over his head. A prosecutor out for blood and glory. The accused, who is possibly innocent. And the killer, who may have just committed the perfect crime.
An innocent man is about to be executed.
Only a guilty man can save him.
For every innocent man sent to prison, there is a guilty one left on the outside. He doesn’t understand how the police and prosecutors got the wrong man, and he certainly doesn’t care. He just can’t believe his good luck. Time passes and he realizes that the mistake will not be corrected: the authorities believe in their case and are determined to get a conviction. He may even watch the trial of the person wrongly accused of his crime. He is relieved when the verdict is guilty. He laughs when the police and prosecutors congratulate themselves. He is content to allow an innocent person to go to prison, to serve hard time, even to be executed.
Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.
Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess.
But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?
This book held my interest from the beginning. I find it interesting that Grisham gives us another book about an innocent man wrongly accused. In this novel, the reader comes to know and understand and feel for the main characters, and rightly despise the true murderer. The characters have depth and are driven by their convictions. The only criticism I have is that I wish Grisham would have given the mother of the victim more dimension, because she was presented so singularly, I found it difficult to feel as much sympathy as I wished to, for her and her family.
Otherwise, I was engaged and interested throughout this book. Very few authors can keep you feeling so "on the edge" for so much of the book, just waiting as each chapter goes by to see if the accused can avoid execution. The reader finds him or herself waiting for those in power to listen to and act positively on the appeals and motions. I didn't want to stop listening, I had to know what would happen.
The ending was wrapped up neatly, maybe a bit too quickly or tidily. Regardless, I liked this book.
58 of 63 people found this review helpful
It's good to see John Grisham exploring different aspects of law practice. I liked the fact that this story was not a "beginning, middle, and end" plot, with a giant chase scene at the end. The book is character-driven, not led by the plot, and I prefer that. I disagree with the reviewer who said the book takes forever to "get off the ground", as I was into it from the start.
I like Grisham's writing method of gently easing the reader into the story and the situation, rather than starting off running with a big conversation or event where you don't know any of the characters and their contexts. Grisham is excellent at providing context, and the reader never feels as though he/she doesn't really know a character or can't place that character. Grisham never gives any superlative qualities to any character, and none is considered more "special" than any other by virtue of looks, income, money, status.
I would like to see Grisham explore different geographical areas other than small towns in the South, but I think that's what he knows best and where he feels most comfortable getting into detail.
I don't think Grisham needed access to an execution in order to describe the scene. It would be easy enough to create the details and emotions (but then I am a creative) if your imagination is working 100%.
I also liked that the resolution to the story was not of a "perfect world" in which everyone gets a prize. The realistic descriptions of the issues surrounding capital punishment, and the pathos, anguish and gut-wrenching emotional contortions of the principal characters simply added to my interest, rather than detracting. I was never of a mind to comment to myself "oh please stay away from that, it's too painful".
I would caution the narrator not to read the female parts in a simulated falsetto. Just makes the women all sound like old "fuddy-duddies".
82 of 92 people found this review helpful
I usually listen to my audiobooks only in the car, but The Confession was so good I couldn't turn it off. Very credit-worthy!
31 of 37 people found this review helpful
Normally a Grisham fan, but this book was simply boring. It also dripped with liberal politics. I am pretty liberal, but I don't need to be hit over the head with some of the themes in this book. Simply unimpressed.
21 of 25 people found this review helpful
Excellent work - - great characters and a real message - - whether you believe in the cause or not. Very well written and the reader is pitch perfect.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful
This book provides a fairly interesting treatment of the death penalty. Grisham develops the main characters fairly well, and the plot is interesting and compelling. Grisham books are always smooth and well crafted.
I raced through the book, although a few parts seemed to drag just a bit. I think I have heard or read all of Grisham's books, and this one seems a little different. However, I still get each one as soon as it comes out, and I am never sorry that I spent my credits on Grisham. Thumbs up.
25 of 31 people found this review helpful
As a lifelong conservative and a 21 year veteran of the military, I am finding it more and more difficult to believe how crooked our justice system can be. It pains me to say, but after much discussion, debate and reading stories like this, these do not seem to be isolated incidents. I understand that this is fiction, but a litle research will show that Texas Oklahoma and Alabama are full of these types of cases. Grisham seems to have learned a great deal from the research required to write the innocent man, and that research came in handy for this. Although a work of fiction, there is more truth than any conservative would care to admit!
21 of 26 people found this review helpful
I have been listen to books from audible for three years now and have mostly listen to books by Dean Koontz and Jeffrey Dreaver. This book has opened my eyes to John Grisham and can not wait to get another book. I found myself searching for time to listen and not wanting it to end. Great Listen.
28 of 35 people found this review helpful
I started and stopped listening to this book three times!! Couldn't finish... I want to be entertained with some suspense, drama or mystery that is not predictable. After 10 chapters, I gave up on this one. I gave three stars because I love most of Grisham's books, Sycamore Row was good entertainment. I found that the narrator had long, dull, lackluster passages to read and it sounded like he was "reading" not Performing the novel. Boring
6 of 7 people found this review helpful
I'm a great Grisham fan, have all of his books and listen to some of them every few years. This one is certainly not my favorite but if you're a Grisham fan I would still recommend it. The story takes quite a while to get going and the fist half reads like a documentary not a legal thriller.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful