Once again, Grisham

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

This is vintage John Grisham: pulse-pounding and breath-taking, a book never to be put down once started.

“The Litigators,” the latest Grisham legal thriller in paperback to hit the local market is exactly the way his fans want his books to be, a taut, tight story told in a fashion that brings back the traditional page-turner, books that one cannot read leisurely, but in as fast a speed as possible, a read that is also a race to the end because, hell, you want to know how it ends.

Like most of Grisham’s books, “The Litigators” hooks one from page one, engaging one so engrossingly one cannot help but finish it as quickly as possible. It holds you in a thrall with its easy, conversational language, as though the story is told by a favorite uncle during coffee.

It starts of course with the story, which is as interesting as the most successful of Grisham’s wide shelf of bestsellers. It is the story of David Zinc, a lawyer in one of the world’s biggest law firms, who suddenly decides one morning to bolt out of the system, unable to take any more of the high-tension job that has left him, among other issues, childless after years of marriage. He and his wife have barely time to make babies, given the demands of corporate law.

It is a romantic story of a man who takes the road less-travelled, one indeed that brought him to places he never knew existed. Grisham weaves a tale so real one can almost smell the alcohol of drunks and the must of the old, crumbling office that David found himself in after he leaves the prestigious law firm.

David gets drunk and finds himself in the office of a two-bit firm operated by aging lawyers who have not quite made it. Now approaching retirement age, they are still ambulance chasers, chasing cases from accidents, divorces and last wills.

These two lawyers, Oscar and Wally, are perhaps two of the most memorable characters Grisham has created. They come off as very human lawyers who, despite their ages, have refused to give up on the Big Dream, pursuing the Big Thing any which way possible. How this pursuit eventually ends is one of the reasons why one would want to get to the last page as soon as possible, so humanly endearing these two become in the book.

Oscar’s courtroom heart attack is wrenching; Wally’s return to alcohol, after months of being clean even more so. I can just imagine this being translated into film, and what brilliant acting turns these two characters will be. I just hope whoever makes the film and the actors who’ll play these characters will do justice to this.

It's the trial of course that keeps one turning the page, and somewhere halfway, does so in frenetic pace. Of course, they’ll lose this case! They’ll get embarrassed, even chewed up! Maybe they’ll lose their membership in the bar! Then, all of a sudden, the author turns the story in such a way as to makes one hold on to the thinnest of hope that perhaps, they just might win the case.

The elements of the case are the stuff that makes for an emotionally engaging story. Big Pharma vs. Small Citizens. Corporate lawyers using jets and billing $5,000 an hour vs. small town barristers who haven’t even gone to trial.

Who wins in the end is what readers will want to know. As usual, Grisham delivers something very dramatic in the end but of course I won’t spoil your fun and reveal. Go, read the book and partake of its delicious suspense. Just make sure you have at least 24 hour to spare, without interruptions.*

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