The Summons - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0756931290 ISBN 13: 9780756931292

Synopsis

University of Virginia law professor Ray Atlee reluctantly returns to his Mississippi hometown after receiving a summons from his ill father, a retired judge who lives alone in his ancestral mansion. Ray's younger brother, Forrest, is also summoned. But the judge dies before meeting his sons, leaving behind a shocking secret known only to Ray--and perhaps someone else.

About this title

Review:

An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the 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 of parable or of setting up situations that are at once archetypal and attractively specific. This is a tale of two brothers--one is righteous, more or less, and one is not--and a question of their inheritance. Ancient Mississippi judge Atlee summons his two sons to his deathbed, but dies before he can explain himself, leaving Ray, who arrives on time unlike his drunkard brother Forest with the difficult problem of the three million dollars in used notes which are lying around the house in shoe-boxes. Ray worries about his father's posthumous reputation, about the Inland Revenue Service and about how quickly Forrest could drink himself to death with unlimited funds.

Grisham is very acute indeed on how the best of intentions lead Ray not to any significant crime or atrocity but to quietly unconscionable behaviour. And then he realises he is being followed... Grisham can build suspense out of remarkably little and has a real gift for understanding the quiet anxieties of an ordinary man. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"The Summons ranks as my absolute favorite in many years...[with] an ending too delicious and morally instructive to give away."--"USA Today
""A pleasure to read...a good yarn."--"The Washington Post
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About this edition

• ISBN 10: 0756931290
• ISBN 13: 9780756931292
• Binding: Paperback