A Wall Street lawyer laid off in the financial crash takes a temporary job at a legal aid clinic in Appalachian coal country and finds herself in a dangerous fight
From Wall Street to coal country
Samantha Kofer is a third-year associate at one of New York's largest law firms when the financial crisis of 2008 hits and she is suddenly laid off. The firm offers her a deal: work for a year without pay at a nonprofit, and she may get her job back. She ends up in Brady, Virginia, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, at a legal aid clinic run by the tireless Mattie Wyatt, helping people with problems she has never encountered on Wall Street.
Who will enjoy it
Grisham readers who like his socially conscious novels, and anyone interested in rural America, coal mining and environmental justice.
What you will get
A gripping, socially conscious Grisham novel about a big-city lawyer who discovers the human cost of coal mining in Appalachia.
Gray Mountain Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Mystery & Thriller · Appalachia · Legal aid · Coal country
Length
480 pages · ≈ 14 h
More about this book
Samantha's new clients are coal miners with black lung disease, families whose water has been poisoned and people facing eviction or abuse. She meets Donovan Gray, a charismatic local lawyer who sues mining companies for a living and takes her to see the devastation of mountaintop removal. Then a sudden tragedy convinces her that the companies she is up against will go to great lengths to protect their secrets, and she must decide how far she is willing to go.
This is Grisham at his most openly political, and the book is a passionate indictment of strip mining and the companies that profit from it. The portrait of Brady and its people is vivid and sympathetic, and Samantha's transformation from corporate cog to engaged lawyer is satisfying. The legal detail about black lung cases, a little-known world for most readers, is especially absorbing.
The plot loses momentum in the second half, and the ending leaves several threads loose, which frustrated some fans. But as a portrait of an overlooked part of America, it is powerful. About 480 pages in the Dell mass-market paperback.
The Summons
The Firm
The Litigators
Camino Winds
Camino Island
A Time to Kill
The Runaway Jury
The Broker
The Pelican Brief
The Client
The Dry
The Street Lawyer