The Appeal - A Review

The Appeal - a John Grisham novel was published in 2008 and customarily found its spot in every top seller list the media industry churned out. This was also a come back novel of sorts for JG wielding his magic in the "legal thrillers" genre after his brief yet hugely successful non-fiction work "The Innocent Man".

There has been much criticism about the one dimensional portraits of the characters in this book but as they say - critics are as critics does. If there has been one thing that I understood mirror-clear in the world was that a coin always had two sides but I digress.

If you want to be in the know-how of how trial lawyers work and the big corporations thwart them in big tort lawsuits, this book is for you. Having no prior knowledge of these matters, it was enlightening sometimes awe-mixed to see the whole of litigation world.

The prose was Grishamisque as usual. Simple yet powerful and narration truly wanting you to turn pages to the very end oblivious to the time of day. The book does lag in the middle to the point of crawling yet it appears to be an intentional plot by the author to have the readers wanting to take a quick pitstop in a formula one race. The climax happens abruptly just like that and could disappoint some readers who might have expected a little more offcourse left turns.

The biggest gripe yet is the fact that bad guys actually win and absolutely go scot-free which is a bummer for me as it could mislead certain young minds who read the piece. I remember one fan-critic requesting almost pleading the author to write a sequel where the good folks of Mississippi come roaring back and pound the obnoxious villains.