Rating: 
Summary: The Summons- A real disappointment
Review: I have enjoyed John Grisham's other legal thrillers, but found The Summons lacking. I feel it would have made an excellent short story, but was too predictable. The characters really had no depth. Does the publisher offer a money back guarantee? I spent a small fortune on the CD audio version.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Premise, Meager Payoff
Review: Premised on an ethical dilemma (what do you do when you find 3 million dollars at your father's deathbed), John Grisham's The Summons fails to provide a completely satisfying read. But as a strong Grisham fan, I found lots of things to like about this book.First, the main character is likeable. Ray is a law professor, ethical, well-paid and contented with his life. He is dutiful to his father, concerned about his addict brother, and realistically anxious when he finds the money. He is as concerned about protecting his deceased father's reputation in his search for the money's origin as he is about what to do with the money if it's clean. Second, it is more or less suspenseful. Grisham has returned from the dry land of the novella and dropped anchor in the legal thriller. I loved The Firm, Runaway Jury, and The Pelican Brief and I'm glad to find John Grisham returning to the genre. One caveat though: the suspense in this book is more about the money than it is about any real concern for the characters. And third, Grisham does a good job setting the scene in the small town in Mississippi where Ray grew up. His description of his ancestral home Maple Run (or, as his brother calls it, "Maple Ruin") and his description of the various town characters add color to a book that otherwise lacks much detail. That's the biggest problem with The Summons-it just doesn't have enough detail. I couldn't put the book down because I had to find out how it would end, but the pace through the middle of the story was a little too quick for me. I felt like I was being pulled through a plot outline rather than reading about real flesh-and-blood people, which made for a meager payoff at the end. A readable book, but not a re-readable one.
Rating: 
Summary: It'll get you hooked in the beginning.......
Review: This book started out with a little bit of intrigue....it hooked you with the anticipation of an unfolding mystery.......then it became extremely slow with all of the details....if you can hold on....it has a great ending!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: A real let-down for any Grisham fan. He must have had something distract him after he wrote the first chapter and never regained his train of thought.
Rating:
Summary: The Summons
Review: I thought this was a very good book. I don't think it really took much thought to write it which is why I only gave it 4 stars, but it was a pretty good quick read. I still really haven't figured out what that female student Kaley had to do with anything though. I hate it when writers put in females for no reason. I agree that the writing wasn't the same as a Time to Kill, but it was a good, fast paced book.
Rating:
Summary: John Grisham "lite"
Review: I always enjoy a trip to the South with John Grisham. Having never been there, my imagination comes alive with his descriptive prose. The beginning of the book delivered, as expected. A main character who is intelligent and likeable, with a ne'er do well brother and a father, though dead from the beginning, with great integrity if lack of personality and warmth, and an old family friend with all the personality the father lacked. So, great setting, good characters, what was missing? The plot! I kept waiting for the tension to build, all the pieces were there including 3 million dollars, but it never seemed to go anywhere. I kept wondering, until the last 50 pages, who it could be that knew so much about this money, and seemed to want it. But that wondering was kept in the background as I followed Ray from place to place hiding this money. The most tension I felt was nervousness that he would be dumb enough to keep 3 hefty bags of cash in the boot of his car. The end of the story is satisfying, if a bit abrupt. There is a bit of a moral here---your good intentions may be viewed by others in a different light, but it all seemed a bit uninspired.
I couldn't help but feel as though Grisham wrote this book while seriously distracted by something else. However, lack of intrigue aside, it was an easy fast read, suitable for poolside lounging. I wouldn't say to skip it, but wait for the paperback.
Rating:
Summary: Not One of Grisham's Best
Review: I don't feel it's up to the caliber of his other novels as it just didn't have many twists and turn. But OK, if you like John Grisham.
Rating: 
Summary: Where did John Grisham go?
Review: I owe a lot of my reading to John Grisham. When I read "THE FIRM" several years ago, I became hooked. My wife, who didn't like Grisham novels, because she is literary minded and J.G. is not quite literature, told me then he is a formula writer and has no sense of writing ability. I vehemently disagreed with her! UNTIL NOW! (and I hate it when my wife is right!!!) John Grisham has tried to get away from his formula legal thrillers over the last few books and has done himself a great disservice. This book was poorly written, and quite honestly out of his element. The only legalese in this book was the "law" student and a revisited characther from his best book--"A TIME TO KILL" For 275 pages the characther moved money from place to place and did not have any development of any type. Then over the next 50 pages everything happens at once. And what happened was dull and uninteresting. This book could have been 75 pages and had as much effect. I want the Grisham formula writer back. I long for the old days of real legal thrillers.
Rating:
Summary: Superb reading by Michael Beck
Review: Kudos to Michael Beck for making something out of this medicore book. Were it not for his superb reading, I would have given this book 1 star. I'm a huge Grisham fan, but I have to agree with most of the other reviewers....this book stunk. It's almost as if someone else wrote it. There was none of his trademark "gripping suspense", the story didn't flow very well, and the ending was just terrible (too abrupt, too many loose ends).
Rating: 
Summary: We've All Been There!
Review: After a slow start, The Summons seems to hit a cord with those of us struggling with elderly and dying parents. Unlike some of his earlier books, steeped in legal mumbo-jumbo, this book seems to give a few key characters in the book an indepth, more humanistic approach to his usual storytelling. Grisham always demonstrates his legal expertise yet can write from a very human perspective. Professor Atlee could have been in one of several other professions and the book still would have worked to Grisham's advantage! It just goes to show that money can take on a life of its own given the chance!!
| 
