Book Report #148 - Sycamore Row

Sycamore Row by John Grisham

At first I wasn't in love with the idea of reading almost 500 pages on a probate case. Then I thought the lawyer the story is based around seemed familiar. Eventually I realized he's Matthew McConaughey from A Time To Kill!

Turns out, Grisham missed the characters from his first novel and wanted to see what they were up to. Lawyer Jake Brigance's case from that story is mentioned frequently. He's still riding on the fame of it.

Sycamore Row seems like a simple story at first. A local rich white man in the Deep South hangs himself so he doesn't have to live out the painful last days of his lung cancer, and at the last minute leaves a new will, which cuts his children out of his estate and leaves 90% of it to his black housekeeper.

Would be easiest to just do what the will says, but the children aren't having it, and all hell breaks loose. Lawyers come out of the woodwork to work on their case, and things become increasingly complicated. Grisham is great with his pacing, and kept me sucked in, even when I wanted to knock everyone's heads together.

Greed and racism run rampant. Sometimes you don't know who to trust. The story definitely keeps you hooked, even when you're wondering what the hell you signed up for.

General consensus: Enjoyable graduate work for the Grisham School of Law.