How does the summons by john grisham end

That was their mother lying down there, a pretty young woman now pale and stiff in an open coffin. Forrest had always called it Maple Ruin.

The red and yellow maples that once lined the street had died of some unknown disease. Their rotted stumps had never been cleared. Four huge oaks shaded the front lawn. They shed leaves by the ton, far too many for anyone to rake and gather. And at least twice a year the oaks would lose a branch that would fall and crash somewhere onto the house, where it might or might not get removed. The house stood there year after year, decade after decade, taking punches but never falling.

Ray wanted nothing to do with it. For him the house was filled with unpleasant memories and each trip back depressed him. Forrest would burn it before he owned it. The Judge, however, wanted Ray to take the house and keep it in the family. This had been discussed in vague terms over the past few years. There was an ex-wife but no prospect of a current one. Same for Forrest, except he had a dizzying collection of ex-girlfriends and a current housing arrangement with Ellie, a three-hundred-pound painter and potter twelve years his senior.

It was a biological miracle that Forrest had produced no children, but so far none had been discovered. He returned to Clanton only for funerals. The Atlee family had once been wealthy, but long before Ray. There had been land and cotton and slaves and railroads and banks and politics, the usual Confederate portfolio of holdings that, in terms of cash, meant nothing in the late twentieth century.

By the time Ray was ten he knew his family had money. His father was a judge and his home had a name, and in rural Mississippi this meant he was indeed a rich kid. Before she died his mother did her best to convince Ray and Forrest that they were better than most folks. They lived in a mansion. They were Presbyterians. They vacationed in Florida, every third year. They occasionally went to the Peabody Hotel in Memphis for dinner.

Their clothes were nicer. Then Ray was accepted at Stanford. Go to any college you want. Ray went to Sewanee, without the baggage of family money, and was supported by his father, who provided an allowance that barely covered tuition, books, board, and fraternity dues. Law school was at Tulane, where Ray survived by waiting tables at an oyster bar in the French Quarter.

While at Tulane Ray read a report on judicial compensation, and he was saddened to learn that Mississippi judges were earning fifty-two thousand dollars a year when the national average was ninety-five thousand.

The Judge lived alone, spent little on the house, had no bad habits except for his pipe, and he preferred cheap tobacco. His vice was charity. He saved his money, then he gave it away. No one knew how much money the Judge donated annually. An automatic ten percent went to the Presbyterian Church.

Sewanee got two thousand dollars a year, same for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Those three gifts were carved in granite. The rest were not. Judge Atlee gave to anyone who would ask. A crippled child in need of crutches. An all-star team traveling to a state tournament. A drive by the Rotary Club to vaccinate babies in the Congo. A shelter for stray dogs and cats in Ford County. He was still dealing with a painful divorce in which his wife left him for a rich man. He did not want to be reminded of his unhappy childhood.

Regardless, Ray arrived in Clanton at the appointed time. At first, he believed his father was napping. Then, Ray realized he was not breathing. He had apparently lain down for a nap and passed away in his sleep. The cash was not mentioned in the will. Without even calling the police or funeral parlor, Ray left his dead father on the sofa and hid the money in a broom closet.

That night, Ray tried to sleep in his childhood home, but his sleep was interrupted when someone tried to break into the house. Ray transferred the cash from the house to the trunk of his car, hoping to keep it safe. A few days later, Ray arrived at the house and discovered someone had broken in. Ray feared the money might get him killed, but he kept it anyway. Trying to determine where the cash might have come from, Ray used some at a casino near Clanton in order to make certain it was not counterfeit.

During a trip to Atlantic City Ray used more of the cash at a variety of casinos, hoping that if the money was marked, he would be notified. When Ray learned that his father had been visiting casinos after his retirement, he arranged an interview with the owner of one of the casinos and confirmed that his father had never been a big enough winner there that he had caught their attention. He contacted Patton French, a lawyer associated with that case, and learned that his father had been hand-picked for it.

The wrongful death case dealt with a drug that had been rushed to market and only later discovered to be responsible for damaging the kidneys. French credited Judge Atlee with the millions he had earned from lawsuits stemming from this trial. The lawyer believed that Gordie Priest, the man who delivered the money to Judge Atlee, was the one who was trying to steal the cash.

French told Ray that he already had ordered Gordie killed because he had stolen from French. He promised that he would put more emphasis on finding Gordie even though Ray did not want the man killed. Just after midnight, a brick was thrown through a window with a note attached warning him to put the money back where he found it and leave the house. A few minutes later Ray received a phone call telling him again he needed to put the money back and leave.

Scared for his life, Ray did as he was ordered. He got in his car and headed back to his home but was stopped and arrested for reckless endangerment when he was barely out of Clanton. Ray rode with the officer to his childhood home, which was already fully engulfed in flames and smelled heavily of gasoline.

Ray believed it was Gordie who had set fire to the house but when he talked to French a few days later, he learned that Gordie was dead before the fire was set.

Meanwhile, Forrest walked away from the rehabilitation center to which he had begged his brother to send him. Ray tracked Forrest down at a high dollar rehabilitation center in Arizona where Forrest admitted that he had gone home to visit their father about a week before he died. Forrest had taken care of his father, who was in a good deal of pain, and gotten him hooked on the morphine pack. And then he learns of that origin in a conversation with a guy who has little reason, it would seem, to talk to him at all.

It just happens. And then he faces a plot twist at the end that struck me at least as even more convoluted than everything that had gone before. Maybe the point of the book was to give Grisham a forum for blasting the herds of lawyers who latch onto groups of people who have suffered from asbestos, tobacco or the side effects of new drugs and use them to squeeze huge settlements out of major corporations.

The Summons told me over and over again in many ways that these attorneys are akin to vultures. Or maybe it was to give Grisham a forum for writing about flying. My guess, based on the book, is that he likes to fly planes. But it all seemed a bit beside the point to me. After I started The Summons but before I was far into it, I wondered how it fit in with other Grisham novels so I looked online and found several rankings of the best to worst of his three dozen books.

In those lists, The Summons always ended up right in the middle, not one of his best but not one of his worst. I have no desire to have anything to do with any of the books that are worse than The Summons. I have liked every John Grisham book that Ive read so far. I just bought The Summons. Ill let you know after I read it. Ten hours I will never get back. Totally agree with the review. Each chapter had so little to offer. Could have been four paragraphs. Huge disappointment. Totally agree with your review read a few of his books and this was the least satisfying.