The Summons - Softcover

Grisham, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385339593 ISBN 13: 9780385339599

Publisher: Anchor Books, 2005

Synopsis

Ray Atlee and his brother, Forrest, receive a letter from their father, a reclusive, retired judge, instructing them to return home to Clanton, Mississippi, to discuss his estate, but the judge dies before his sons arrive, leaving behind a secret known only to Ray. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

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:

"Classic Grisham" (Times)

"John Grisham is a copper-bottomed promise of reliable story-telling. The legal trappings are as persuasive as ever" (Independent)

"Smooth, tough and addictive" (Mirror)

"No one tells a story better than Grisham" (Evening Standard)

"Compelling" (Time Literary Supplement)

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0385339593
• ISBN 13: 9780385339599
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304