“The
Appeal” is John Grisham's
handy primer on a timely subject: how to rig an election. Blow by blow,
this not-very-fictitious-sounding
novel depicts the tactics by which
political candidates either can be propelled or ambushed and their
campaigns can be subverted. Since so much of what happens here involves
legal maneuvering in Mississippi, as have many of his other books, Mr.
Grisham knows just how these games are played. He has sadly little
trouble making such dirty tricks sound real.Building a remarkable degree of suspense into the all too familiar
ploys described here, Mr. Grisham delivers his savviest book in years.
His extended vacation from hard-hitting fiction is over. However
passionately he cared about the nonfiction events he described in “An
Innocent Man,” his strong suit remains bluntly manipulative, no-frills
storytelling, the kind that brings out his great skill as a puppeteer.
It barely matters that the characters in “The
Appeal” are essentially
stick figures. What works for Mr. Grisham is his patient, lawyerly,
inexorable way of dramatizing urgent moral issues.The
jumping-off point for “The Appeal” is that a mom-and-pop law firm wins
a big Mississippi verdict, triumphing over a chemical company that has
spread carcinogenic pollutants. But this victory could turn out to be
hollow, because the deep-pocketed corporate defendant isn’t giving up
without a fight. The New York-based Krane Chemical swings into combat
mode, first by taking stock of these small-town lawyers. The mom and
pop are Wes and Mary Grace Payton: nice people, good parents, nearly
broke. Krane’s stealth envoys quickly determine that it wouldn’t take
much to push the Paytons over the edge. But the Paytons
themselves are little more than a nuisance to Krane. The precedent
created by their case is what matters, and the company’s real objective
is to make itself safe from similar attacks in the future. In order to
arrange that, Krane needs the Mississippi Supreme Court. Another
nuisance: Mississippi Supreme Court justices can’t simply be appointed.
They have to be elected. Now the stakes start to ratchet up. So
a corrupt senator puts Krane’s greedy billionaire C.E.O., Carl Trudeau,
in contact with Troy-Hogan, a mysterious Boca Raton firm that
specializes in elections. There is no Troy. There is no Hogan. There is
no record of the nature of the business conducted by this privately
owned corporation, which is domiciled in Bermuda. For two separate
fees, one acknowledged and the other, larger one delivered quietly to
an offshore account, Troy-Hogan will do its magic. “When our clients
need help,” says Barry Rinehart, Troy-Hogan’s main power player, who
radiates the same expensive sartorial confidence that Trudeau does, “we
target a Supreme Court justice who is not particularly friendly, and we
take him or her out of the picture.”“The Appeal” is clever enough to throw in a rogue third candidate, a
clownishly unelectable figure who can draw publicity away from Sheila
McCarthy. It also gives her liabilities like a sex life, provides her
with an unhelpful zealot as a campaign adviser and underscores the
terrible malleability of the voting public. According to a survey cited
here, 69 percent of Mississippi’s electorate has no idea that the
state’s Supreme Court justices run for office.And this book has a keen ear for the baloney of biased rhetoric,
particularly when it comes from the right. (Mr. Grisham makes no secret
of his own political position. He has publicly supported the
presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.)
“Are you aware that Justice Sheila McCarthy is considered the most
liberal member of the Mississippi Supreme Court?” a poll inquires. And
once the gratuitous issue of gay marriage has been intentionally
shoehorned into the campaign, the voice-over on a television ad can be
heard asking, “Will liberal judges destroy our families?” While
the election looms, Krane trots out the phrase “junk science” when it appeals the
verdict and attacks the expert testimony of a toxicologist, geologist
and pathologist, among others who affirmed the effects of Krane’s toxic
pollutant. And Ron Fisk, who finds himself giving many of his stump
speeches from pulpits, learns to fine-tune his emphases on religion and
family values. The extent to which he rails against sin depends on how
close he is to the lucrative casinos of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.“I
must say that there is a lot of truth in this story,” Mr. Grisham
points out in his
author’s note. That point is already unmistakable in
his book’s gallingly apt examples and its irrefutable tone. Only when
he contrasts the difference between the cynical, venal, jaded rich and
their noble, self-sacrificing victims does he court sloppiness and
caricature. While the book notes that Wes Payton had to budget for each
cup of coffee “and was always looking for quarters,” it presents Carl
Trudeau, both stereotypically and ungrammatically, as “a hothead with a
massive ego who hated to lose.” GET THIS BOOK FREE.BUY SELL RENT BOOKS FROM THE LINK BELOW.