Short summary of the book
The book begins when two kids go to the woods. After a while, a man drives in his car. They believe he’s going to commit suicide and therefore, they try to stop him. When he notices them, he takes them into his car and tells them the reason for his death wish. He tells them that he’s a lawyer who represents the Mafia and because he knows the whereabouts of a missing senator’s body, he’s sure they’re after him. The kids manage to escape from the car and while running they hear a gun shot. The younger brother panics and his brother takes him to the hospital. The older brother- Mark then goes back to the dead lawyer and it is there where the police finds him. The kid believes he is at risk because of the things he knows and looks for a lawyer. He finds a woman lawyer- Reggie Love. The kid is taken to court. In the mean while, a hit-man hired by the Mafia tries to kill him yet he and Reggie escape. In the end, Reggie and the boy find the senator’s body and the boy goes into protective custody.
Would you classify this book as a good book?
If I look at the whole picture, this book is excellent. Like every book it has it’s flaws yet this one has many positive things.
I like almost every trial book/movie but this one is a must. The main reason that I liked the book is the suspense and intrigue that it gave me. In many parts of the book you can notice how much John Grisham tries to raise the suspense- And he succeeds. I mainly like the really scary parts such as when the hit man is chasing Mark. The book flows very fast because of this great suspense. A great character is Mark Sway. I liked him because even though he has a very tough life(Has to take care of his family all by himself, The mafia is trying to kill him), he never gives up and always manages to do the things he needs. For example: When Mark is put in jail, he understand that he cannot go out yet he runs around in the room until his pulse is extraordinary high and faints “he’s burning up”. The warden rushes him to the hospital where he escapes. “the ride to st. peter’s took less than ten minutes…Mark smiled to himself”-pg. 340. Another feature of the book which I liked is that it doesn’t exaggerate with descriptions about the characters. He tell us just enough to understand them and their motives. The language is good- Even tough it uses complicated vocabulary, it gave John Grisham a tool to describe long descriptions with only a few words.
To sum up, I think this book is probably the best trial book I’ve ever read. I highly recommend it.
Compare and contrast two characters
The characters I chose to compare and contrast are Reggie Love and the district attorney- Roy Foltrigg. They are the most contrasted characters I found in the book.
Reggie Love is first of all a very caring person. She is willing to do almost everything- including risking her life and her job just to help Mark, who is in great trouble. I believe she does it because she lost the custody on her kids so she treats Mark like her own. From the moment they meet we already see her kindness- she knows Mark is poor and she won’t recieve money from him as attorney yet she agrees to be his lawyer for 1$-“ I assume you don’t have a lot of money….do you have a dollar”-pg. 113. It even continues- she thinks for herself “she would somehow return it to him”-pg. 113. Even though she isn’t a famous lawyer such as Roy, she’s very proud of who she is and isn’t afraid of people with status higher than hers. Example: When Roy tries to interrogate Mark without a lawyer, she records it and threatens Roy that she’ll use it “Reggie slowly opened her briefcase and lifted out the black recorder…”its all right here on tape”…he could not look a her””- pg. 134/135.
Roy Foltrigg is her complete contrast. He isn’t a caring person at all- He does his job just to please himself. He also believes no one can argue with him because what he says is always right. It even seems that he believes he’s a semi-god -he always quotes parts of the Bible to show he’s never wrong. Because of his arrogance, he thought that Reggie Love would be a simple nut to crack. He was wrong. Reggie surprised him and showed him that you shouldn’t underestimate others.
The contrast between these characters is highly important in the book. This is a trial book and therefore, not much action is taking place outside the court room. We must understand these two characters and this contrast really helped me know them both better.
Newspaper article
18.1.92
Risky job
By David Kalmanson
Today, Jerome Clifford, one of the mafia lawyers ,was found dead in his car. It seems to be a suicide. It is believed that he tried to kill himself by connecting the exhaust pipe to his car but when it didn’t work he shot hinself. Jerome Clifford was supposed to defend Barri “the blade” Muldano in the trial about the missing senator Boyette’s body(For details about this story-check out “Where is the senator” which was published two weeks ago-4.1.92). After many efforts, we suceeded in contacting Barri- when we requested his comment we got this strange reply: “Good. He was a pain in the neck”. Jerome was found by two kids who were wandering in the woods. Their names are Mark and Ricki Sway. These kids didn’t agree to comment anything to us. There are rumors that Roy Foltrigg- the attorney who never lost a trial, and his investigators, are coming to town. We heard that he came to connect Barri with the crime- We will keep you posted with hot news about the investigation and if there will be a trial.
Poem
The kid who Knew too much
With him- the Mafia and the police always kept in touch.
They chased him all around
Just because he heard about a murder on a deadly ground.
Searching high like a dove
He found his rescuer- Reggie Love.
A lawyer and a kid-A great team, indeed
Helped each other in case of need.
Even though they could have gotten themselves killed
In the end-the whole truth was revealed.
I believe it’s too difficult to put the whole book with all of it’s great parts in a short poem like this. Therefore, I decided my poem would talk about the main characters- Reggie and Mark and will show their special connection. I believe that they really didn’t “get themselves killed” because of the great bond they had. They helped each other all the way during all times. I believe it reflects the main issue of the book- if we help each other there’s nothing we can’t accomplish
