The Summons - John Grisham

It's amazing how an ending can colour a person's view on something. As a film fan that likes to review (on here of course) I have found that many films end with a bang just so that the last thing a person remembers is the exciting set piece and they forget the boring hour before it. The same happens in books and I have found that crime fiction in particular likes to end on a bang. However, there is a flip side to a book or film ending on a high and that is when they end on a low. How many times have you seen a film only to be let down by a drab or confusing ending. Perhaps the rest of the book you were reading was ok, only for it all to be undermined by poor editing ...

If you have ever read any John Grisham books, you probably know 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 novel, and later film 'Time To Kill' was based. At nearly 400 pages long in the paperback version, it is a standard Grisham novel size wise, ...

If I was asked my favourite author I would probably say John Grisham without thinking but as time goes on it is harder and harder to justify saying that. To be honest I hadn't realised how far his standards had slipped until I looked at the list of other books and realised that it was a long time since I had really enjoyed one of them and that his best work was in his first half dozen releases. The latest offering "The Summons" gave me some hope as it was back to being what he writes about best. Grisham takes us back to the scene of his first novel, "A Time to Kill" which is Clanton, Mississippi. The story is based upon a dying Judge ...