Rating: 
Summary: Criticism is sour grapes
Review: The "summons" here refers to University of Virginia law professor Ray Atlee being called home to Clanton, Mississippi, for what he thinks will be a final meeting with his father, Judge Reuben V. Atlee who is dying of Cancer.
When he arrives, he finds the old man dead. He also finds over three million in cash.
Grisham has endured much criticism as a one-note writer: his protagonist is always a lawyer; his setting is usually in Mississippi. This is sour grapes. Grisham doesn't pretend to be any more than what he is, a popular writer. Nobody plots his stories better, nobody is a better storyteller. Ray Atlee finds the money and sets out to find out where it came from. The plotting is lean and mean without too many diversions. Ray Atlee is a likable character, a law professor whose wife has left him for a billionaire securities broker. Even Ray's drug addict brother Forrest is compelling. He's a former star football player with a penchant for spearing any defensive player with the audacity to intercept one of his passes. These days his biggest claim to fame is how many days it's been since his last fix. Ray puts off telling Forrest about the money for obvious reasons.
Despite Grisham's staying close to formula here, he does display a facility for satire, taking a poke at high stakes lawyers who take on big tobacco, asbestos companies, and drug conglomerates for fifty percent of the proceeds. There's some wicked humor. At one point one of these sharks, who's just won a big ruling, says, "It's a shame we have to share it with the clients."
There's no love interest in this one, unless you count the law student who's after Ray. She shows the complexity of the Ray character. Ray's waiting for her to graduate first. She's also a gold digger, just like his ex-wife.
THE SUMMONS is a good two-day read. Grisham keeps us guessing as to where the money came from, providing several blind alleys. The resolution is right on the numbers, also a little sad. A nice effort from one of our premier storytellers.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Wow. Looks like I'm in the minority. At the risk of disillusioning everyone, I'll become the second person in the first three pages of reviews I read to give it a perfect 5 out of 5.The story is, on the surface a fairly simple one. Two brothers, Ray - a law professor - and Forrest - a recovery alcoholic in between jobs - are summoned home by their father, an old and ailing retired Judge in Mississippi. When they get home, they find him dead, and Ray finds over $3 million hidden in the house - odd indeed, considering his father's by-the-books way of dealing with life and his past generosity to charities, which has left his bank account nearly dry. The story follows Ray as he attemptings to find the source of this money, wondering who he can trust, and envisioning himself with a new house and a bigger plane to fly around in. This story, unlike most of his recent works, takes several twists which left me guessing and, on the whole, satisfied. This isn't, say, the Testament or the Partner, where you know in the end that everything is going to work out just peachy from the beginning, and it's just a matter of how the story gets there. I was with Ray the whole time, wondering what I would do in his situation, wondering where the money came from, wondering how he was going to get out of several situations. As a reader, that's all I can ask for. I read this novel in a day. I couldn't set it down. And by the end, I was still pondering over the message. For his moral works (The Testament, A Painted House, etc.), it's among his best, because it's not cut and dry. There's one side of the ending, and then there's the other. It was left pleasantly unresolved -- pleasantly in that the reader can still think about it and what they would have done long after the story's done. If you trust anybody from such a strong minority as this, I say read this book. It's not Grisham's best, but he's given me plenty of reason to believe he can still write. Matty J
Rating: 
Summary: Lawyers, Guns and Money
Review: Dear Mr. Grisham, First of all, welcome back from your desperate journey into the land of short literary romance novels. I wondered why you, David Baldacci, and James Patterson, all went there in the same year. Do you all share the same agent? Are you all the same person? Will Nelson DeMille write a love story next? Anyway, it's nice to have another fat paperback potboiler every winter. I do wonder why your novels get shorter every year. In paperback, "The Chamber" was 650 pages long. That took me a week to finish! But "The Testament" was 550 pages long, "The Brethren" was 450, and "The Summons", your latest, isn't even close to 400! So I finished it in only three days. What on Earth am I supposed to do until next winter? Reread "The Partner"? Well... I wouldn't go that far. I suppose that "The Summons" is another dark comedy. A burned-out lawyer find millions of dollars of cash in a shoebox, and takes increasingly weird evasive measures, as nameless, non-denominational gangsters shoot at him. This reminds me a lot of "The Big Lebowski" by the Coen Brothers, but Jeff Bridges wasn't a lawyer, and there's no sidekick as hilarious or memorable as John Goodman. There was a returning character played by Oliver Platt in the movie version of "A Time To Kill", which isn't the same thing at all. I enjoyed "The Summons" a lot. I had the mystery figured out by page 113! Which means you fooled me, because most other people had it figured out by the end of the back-cover blurb. And why have there been exactly 39 chapters in each of your last 4 or 5 books? I can't figure out what's so special about that number. I did enjoy the funny observations about small-time lawyers, and what they think about their richer counterparts. I was educated by the chapters describing multi-billion dollar tort litigation, and those that took place on a boat christened "The King of Torts" -- which is also the title of your next book. Maybe I should have the ending of that book figured out before it's even printed? Thanks again, and see you for two days next winter!
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Grisham
Review: The Best Grisham yet. In this affordable volume you can own history in the making as Grisham does it again with The Summons. The next #1 world wide! Also recommende Dreams Gateway to the True Self.
Rating:
Summary: Pedestrian, noteworthy only for its author
Review: The Summons, like The Firm, has improbable twists of plot, but the characters are less well delineated, the love interest abortive, the focus on money all too typical for an author who is also an attorney, and, as an antidote to Tom Clancy, the emphasis on Protestant heroes and Roman Catholic villains sadly characteristic. After the authentic portrayals of Depression-era southern poverty in A Painted House and of monolithic midwestern conformity in Skipping Christmas, this work is formulaic and disappointing, and one wonders whether it would be a best-seller if another author's name adorned the masthead.
Rating:
Summary: The Summons - A Review
Review: Having read every John Grisham book, it's obvious that his early work is his best. Particularly Time To Kill, a superb novel. The Summons is entertaining and keeps you reading. There are some vintage Grisham sentences: direct, descriptive and filled with very dry humor at times. The characters are beleivable and well described. Unfortunately, there's no real punch to this one as there were in earlier works. So, prepared to be entertained but not blown away.
Rating:
Summary: not sooo bad
Review: i liked this book. i found it a nice quick and, dare i say it, entertaining read. i have read all grisham's books and have yet to be disappointed. it may have been a bit predictable, but it was definitely enjoyable. i have little time these days, so it was one of the few books i was able to finish quickly. i would recommend it to anyone. geez, people, lighten up.
Rating:
Summary: not so bad
Review: i'm surprised how many people didn't like this book. I found it a quick read, which for me was good as i have little time these days. i have read all grisham's books and have yet to be disappointed. Geez, people, lighten up. I would recommend it, for what that's worth.
Rating:
Summary: Good listening for the car
Review: I got the audio CD for a long drive. While it was standard Grisham (although I hadn't read anything since The Client), it was still entertaining and made a long car drive go by very quickly.
Rating: 
Summary: Fall From Grace
Review: The last 2 Grisham books that I have read have made me reconsider buying any more. Between 'A Painted House' and this one, I just don't think I can do that to myself any more. This one wasn't as bad as 'A Painted House' but that's not really saying much because they were both bad.
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