A Book A Week: Books 17 and 18

I cheated. I didn’t “read” these books.

I listened to them using the audible app.  I’m going to say it counts though because I had just had LASIK and I couldn’t really read anyway.  Plus, I’ve been in front of a computer for the past few weeks doing document review and I just didn’t feel like reading even more. Remember how I said earlier I would hit a snag and not be able to read as much?  It’s been a month since I finished my last book.  So, yeah, I hit that snag.  I’m still ahead by a few weeks though so I’m good.  😉

Book 17 was Sycamore Row by John Grisham. I absolutely loved A Time to Kill….the movie and the book.  In fact, I may read the book again (or listen to it, these are sometimes hard to sit down and read).  So when I saw Jake Brigance was the lead in this new book I had to get it.  Plus it was long and because of my surgery I was required to keep my eyes closed for 24 hours straight.  Listening to a book sounded perfect.

It starts out with the suicide of Seth Hubbard.  Which, in itself, was not remarkable.  He was sick.  He was older.  The remarkable part was his will.  He drafted a handwritten will which gave everything to his housekeeper.  Instead of his children.

The book focuses a lot on Judge Atlee and his belief that the kids should get everything but Hubbard changed his mind.  It’s a common theme – people believing the kids should get the inheritance. Honestly?  Those kids didn’t deserve it.  I don’t blame him one bit for deciding not to give them anything.  In fact, I would have been happy if the book had ended with them getting nothing, the house keeper getting it all and Jake getting his fair cut of the pot.  Of course that’s not what happened.

It went to trial with a jury.  I’m not going to give much away but here are things that bothered me.

Jake, who had won that HUGE trial in A Time To Kill, was the attorney.  He needed a new home because, if you remember from the prior book, his home was burned down by the Klan.  A home came open that he could buy and Judge Atlee advised him not to.  Said it wouldn’t look right.  My thought was that the old man should mind his own business.  I don’t know, I just don’t like side stories that involve someone “older and wiser” telling the other characters what to do with their money. All in all, it’s a great book.  You should read it…or listen to it.

Book 18 was also by John Grisham.  This one was The Summons. This book was also about Judge Atlee.  Although it was published in 2010, and Sycamore Row in 2013, it was about his death.  Obviously these books are not based in present time anyway but I felt better reading Sycamore Row, with a living Judge Atlee, before The Summons because once I read about a character’s death it’s hard to switch back and forth between them living and not.

Anyway, Atlee had two sons, Forest and Ray.  Ray was the good son – a law professor at UVA which is, of course, a top law school.  Forest was the “other” son.  A drug addict who drifted and had no real purpose in life.  The Judge summoned them both to his home to discuss his estate, which to me is just odd.  Who does that?  Especially who, as a retired judge who made very little money in life, does that?

Ray comes home to find his father has already passed.  He also finds something else. Cash. Lots of cash. So this is the story of the cash.  And of what Ray does with it.  Will he keep it for himself?  Will he put it into the estate and give half to Forest, as the HANDWRITTEN will directs him to?  Even though he had drafted another will with an attorney that distributed the estate differently? If he put it in the estate, the first thing would be taxes.  They’d lose a lot of money, which is something Judge Atlee KNEW because Atlee was the judge on the Sycamore Row matter and he did not like taxes and he did not like handwritten wills.  Red flags all around for me (even if this book was written 3 years prior to Sycamore Row – I like to think authors have plans and this was put in there for a reason).

Ray is on a mission – find out where the cash came from and figure out what to do with it.

I like to think that, in the end, he would have given Forest half, or at least a third.  But he never had the chance.  There were too many other things going on. I’m not giving this one away either.  Read it.  Or listen to it.

You won’t like Ray or Forest very much.  But that’s ok.  You aren’t supposed to.