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I have now just finished reading my fourth Grisham novel, The Summons,
Had I read this first I don't think I would have bothered with the other three.
The story ,like the other novels I have read, features aspects of the American legal system and cleverly weaves a fairly intricate plot ... Read review
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 afrai...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Free!
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 afrai...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 afrai...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the university of Virginia who is forty-three and newly ... more
single. He has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi; a beloved and powerful official who has towered over ...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: in stock
An intelligent, low-key thriller,The Summonscontinues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 afrai...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Check Site.
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 afrai...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Check Site.
An intelligent, low-key thriller,The Summonscontinues John Grisham's exploration of the ... more
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 ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Easy to read Disadvantages: Not up to usual standard
...reading John Grisham's books like the plague as my daughter in law and my son kept insisting that I should read them. Knowing my son's taste in reading material from his late teens centred around gory, badly written war stories which seemed to involve a lot of blood and gore and visits to brothels I assumed that Grisham's books would be of the same ilk. I was very much mistaken.
I have now just finished reading my fourth Grisham novel, ... ...I would have bothered with the other three.
The story ,like the other novels I have read, features aspects of the American legal system and cleverly weaves a fairly intricate plot around them. However the plot failed to grip in quite the same way as those in the other books I had read with fewer twists and turns and an almost wholly predictable ending.
I avoided reading John Grisham's books like the plague as my daughter in law and my son kept insisting that I should read them. Knowing my son's taste in reading material from his late teens centred around gory, badly written war stories which seemed to involve a lot of blood and gore and visits to brothels I assumed that Grisham's books would be of the same ilk. I was very much mistaken.
I have now just finished reading my fourth Grisham novel, The Summons, Had I read this first I don't think I would have bothered with the other three.
The story ,like the other novels I have read, features aspects of the American legal system and cleverly weaves a fairly intricate plot around them. However the plot failed to grip in quite the same way as those in the other books I had read with fewer twists and turns and an almost wholly predictable ending.
THE MAIN CHARACTERS
Ray Atlee - He works as a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He is in his early forties, newly divorced his wife having traded him in for an older and much richer model. Having escaped working in his fathers law firm in Clanton Mississippi, he has settled into a comfortable lifestyle and indulges in his passion for flying on a regular basis. There is no romantic interest in his life although he has a passing flirtation with one of his students. This is not explored in any great depth. Seems really a passing mention and did nothing to add depth to characterisation
Forrest Atlee - Ray's brother. He is definitely the black sheep of the family having spent most of his adult life either drunk and stoned or in rehab mostly paid for by his father. He has occasional periods of sobriety - the days of which he counts.This character seemed a bit two dimensional and stereotyped.. Bits of his earlier life padded out parts of the storyline with references to dastardly deeds of his youth.
Harry Rex - Family friend and lawyer in Clanton..been married loads of times his principal occupations seem to be eating drinking and fornicating. Left me wondering how he ever made time for anything else - let alone running a legal practice.
Judge Reuben Atlee - Not featured in life in the book but I found him to be the most fleshed out character in the novel. Widowed at an early age and left with two sons to raise he proves to be a distant aloof parent with a far greater interest in his judicial duties, making donations to charity and what he considers to be worthy causes than either of his sons. His children both proved to be disappointments to him, Forrest for obvious reasons and Ray because he failed to join his father's law firm, As a side character Claudia, the judges paramour, is introduced to the plot - she too is rather stereotyped,A money grabbing aging woman who has expectations of benefiting from the judges estate in repayment for past favours.
Perhaps the most convincing aspects of this book are the descriptions of the old house in Clanton and other places that paint a vivid picture of locations.
THE PLOT The story opens with Ray receiving a summons to visit the judge who is dying of cancer.. He goes somewhat reluctantly taking his time driving there.. unfortunately by the time he arrives the judge has died leaving behind a newly written will splitting his estate between his sons. There is little left after his charitable donations with the main value being in the house. However while looking through his father's papers he discovers 3 million dollars in boxes in his desk. Is it greed or some other reason that prompts him to hide the money, lugging it around the country in the boot of his car to save it from being taken by person or persons unknown who in the process scare mightily and put him in serious fear for his personal safety. The book explores his journey and his efforts to discover where the money has come from and who is trying to take it from him. If I reveal more of the plot I think it will spoil the pleasure of anyone reading this.
Is it worth reading? Yes it's well written but not as un put downable as his other legal books, It felt more like something written to fulfill a contract rather than something that was well thought out and a pleasure for the author to write. This is something I would read on the beach not something I would normally read at home, although this was read in bed at night.
I bought my book secondhand at the local Banardo's shop paying 75p. The cover price on the book was £6.99 but it is available on Amazon for less. I didn't mind paying 75P but would have been a bit disappointed if I had paid full price.
Advantages: Some good conversations and set pieces Disadvantages: Very slow pace, the plot feels disjointed
...more or less mop up the ones that I haven’t read. That’s certainly why I read The Summons, which was published in 2002 and is Grisham’s twelfth novel. One benefit of reading one off books by the same author back to back (at least for the purposes of reviews) is that it does allow you to directly compare quality. Unfortunately in this case it wasn’t such an advantage in my quest to enjoy the book that I’m reading, but I’ll get to all of that in good ... ...very straightforward. The protagonist is Ray Atlee, a college law professor in his early forties. Ray’s father is a well known yet aging and very ill Judge who has managed to push his sons away from him through his harsh and unforgiving attitude to life, and his brother is Forrest is a life long drug and alcohol addict on a road to self destruction. For obvious reasons Ray keeps a level of distance between himself and the rest of his immediate family, ...
CrazyJamie 02.08.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Summons - John Grisham
Advantages: A catchy style of writing Disadvantages: Bad reviews will have put people off
...that they generally involve lawyers, the law or courtrooms, and I have read some reviews which criticise this emphasis, and say there should be more emphasis on the characters and their lives away from their work. Well I can say, 'The Summons' will please both camps, as it is about a lawyer and his family. Again, the story is based in the south, where the family in question originate from a place called Clanton in Mississippi, which is where is excellent ... ...nearly 400 pages long in the paperback version, it is a standard Grisham novel size wise, but has been criticised by fans and the media alike, and many claim it is his worst novel to date.
Published in 2002, it is one of the more recent releases, and the main character is a divorced law professor called Ray Atlee. All of his life, Ray has been overshadowed and intimidated by his father, the affluent Reuben V Atlee, who was a well respected and feared ...
nicanddarrell 07.09.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Summons - John Grisham
Advantages: Few characters to get to know Disadvantages: I guessed the the plot very early.
...to say it was not the best example of his work that I have come across.
The Storyline
Within the first few pages of the novel the story holds true to it's title, and the summons arrives on the desk of professor Ray Atlee, son of Judge Atlee who is near his end and wishes to summon his sons to discuss his will and estate.
Judge Atlee is well-known in Clanton, Mississippi for his ability to make all his courtroom decisions fair, and also for writing ... ...never returned to set up the law practice as his father had wished. Ray's brother, Forrest, was the bad egg in the family and had been in and out of detox centres since he was young.
When Ray arrives at his run-down family home he finds the Judge peacefully lying dead in his study, and this is where he finds three million dollars in a cash. The discover is so out of the ordinary that he hides the money and vows to find out where it originated from. ...
frizzball 02.05.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Summons - John Grisham
Advantages: Grisham is a fine writer and story-teller Disadvantages: This is far from his best work
...once again become exposed to the vagaries of the London transport system, I decided it was time to purchase some new reading material. For any of those used to the world renowned fish in can experience that is the London Underground, I won’t need to mention that high-brow reading that requires all your concentration is far from ideal. No, for the cramped, sweaty, bustling underground light untaxing reading is definitely the order of the day.
... ...the latest John Grisham paperback for a measly £3.84 in my local Tesco’s. Whilst I don’t profess to being a huge Grisham fan, a brief glance at the list of his previous publications revealed that I’ve read all but one, so clearly there’s something I appreciate about his work. His flowing lucid prose usually contains within it a legal tale of intriguing content, with enough complexity and nuance to keep me entertained and occasionally ...
Mercury 20.03.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Summons - John Grisham
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Advantages: Grisham at his very best Disadvantages: none
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You should be able to find it in most book shops and online at amazon or one of them kind of online stores and is usually priced around £6.99
More JohnGrisham books i would recommend are
The Summons
The Client
The Rainmaker
The Runaway jury
I've have read and enjoyed all of his books and would advise anyone to read them. ...
Product Information for "The Summons - John Grisham" »
Product details
Author
John Grisham
Title
The Summons
Genre
Thriller
Type
Fiction
ISBN
0099406136; 0385503822; 071268431X; 0712684360
Manufacturer's product description
Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep. And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse. With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he prefers now to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray. And perhaps someone else. About the AuthorJohn Grisham is the author of twelve bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi.
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