Not much suspense, but a good story with unique and interesting characters.

STORY BRIEF:
Eccentric billionaire leaves all his money to an illegitimate child Rachel no one knew about. His six grandchildren are greedy idiots who hire attorneys to contest the will. Josh is executor of the will. He needs someone to go to the jungles of Brazil to find Rachel who is working with tribes as a Christian missionary. Josh asks Nate to go. Nate was a high-powered litigator who has been in rehab several times for alcohol and cocaine. He is twice divorce with kids he never sees. The IRS wants to put him in jail for tax fraud. He is close to the end of his current rehab stay, but he leaves to go to Brazil.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
This is not as powerful as some of the author’s other books, but it’s a fine story. His most popular books had more suspense and thriller. This is just a fictional story about lawyers and heirs to an estate. It’s different. It’s enjoyable and above average because of the author’s skill. He’s good at creating fun-to-watch characters. I chuckled at some of the wry comments. For example, Nate’s life is so miserable and he’s feeling such hangover pain, that he’s in a fog about the dangers around him. It’s like who cares if he has to fend off alligators. It’s just another inconvenience. After one event he says in his dry uncaring monotone “oh, I’m still alive?” His reactions and acceptance of jungle threats were humorous in a dry, satirical way. In addition to alligators he sees anacondas, piranhas, rats as big as dogs, and mosquitos. Later Nate suffered through dengue fever. Josh saw him and said “You look awful. You’re skinny as a rail.” Nate said “You want to lose fifteen pounds, find the right mosquito.” On another topic, I admired and liked the character Josh - smart, competent, but not perfect.

Maybe 40% of the story is lawyers for the grandchildren scheming to get money. The rest of the story is about Nate with some Rachel. I don’t want to give away too much, but I enjoyed Nate’s change. Many reviewers complained about the ending saying it was rushed and incomplete. I agree. I would have liked more. But it was acceptable to me. One part was a little sad, but my overall feeling at the end was “kind of nice.”
ttttttttttttt
NARRATOR:
The narrator Frank Muller was fabulous. He’s very entertaining with the various personalities, especially with Nate’s attitude and comments.

DATA:
Unabridged audiobook reading time: 14 hrs and 33 mins. Swearing language: moderate (one word used maybe once). Sexual content: none. Setting: current day Virginia and other east coast locations plus the jungles of Brazil and Bolivia. Book copyright: 1999. Genre: legal fiction. Ending: kind of nice but could have used more wrapping up.

OTHER BOOKS:
I’ve reviewed the following John Grisham books. Dates are copyright dates.
5 stars. The Firm 1991
5 stars. The Pelican Brief 1992
5 stars. The Client 1993
2 stars. The Chamber 1994
4 ½ stars. The Rainmaker 1995
5 stars. The Runaway Jury 1996
3 stars. The Partner 1997
3 stars. The Street Lawyer 1998
4 stars. The Testament 1999
4 stars. Playing for Pizza 2007
2 stars. Theodore Boone Kid Lawyer 2010 (for young adults)

As the book title implies, this is a story involving the last will and testament of one of the wealthiest men in the world. But it's really comprised of two separate storylines. One is the wrangling of heirs and their unscrupulous attorneys to overturn the final wishes of the deceased - essentially a money-grab. The second storyline is the journey of an ambulance chasing, alcoholic attorney who must brave dangers lurking in Brazil's Amazon in order to locate the rightful heir of this fortune.

Grisham novels, IMO, tend to be hit or miss. I loved Pelican Brief and The Firm. Others, not so much. This book was really great until the very end, when I felt the author must have simply run out of steam. The ending, while it did kinda wrap up the story, left me feeling a bit cheated. Still worth reading for the overall story, but don't expect to be particularly satisfied at the end.

Troy Phelan is a billionaire and wants to end his life but who will get his money. His family is wanting the money and planning on having the money, but before Troy dies he gives his money to his daughter from a affair. The problem Rachel is a missionary who lives in the jungle of Brazil. Nate, an attorney who is a drunk and trying to become dry, is hired to find Rachel. His journey brings him closer to God and changes his life. Will Rachel take the money?? I have never read John Grisham before and I thought the book was good. The story of Nate was my favorite of the book. His journey to drunk to sober was encouraging. I found the book a little slow and reading about Troy family gets hard continuing to listen to. I don't know if I would ever read John Grisham again but I am glad I did try him. If you want to be entertained I would recommend this book.

After reading a couple of iffy Grishams in my own personal Grishamathon and feeling a bit let down by the master, it was terrific to get back to some sizzling entertainment with "The Testament". This one has a couple of intriguing subplots cooking along at once, both superbly entertaining stories. I really felt like I was on the riverboat in the Pantanal of Brazil with Nate the alcoholic lawyer on a mission, and in the lawyers rooms as the legal vultures handled the despicable heirs to a fortune of 11 billion dollars. I thoroughly enjoyed this page-turner and look forward to the next Grisham out of the box (I think there are 20 or so books!) I bought at a garage sale.

Its not a work of great literature but I really enjoyed this search for a woman who doesent want to be found.

Another solid tale by Grisham! It wasn't a typical Courtroom Drama either like most of his books are.

The Testament opens us with the ruthless self-made Billionaire Troy Phelan, who is in his 90's who is dying, has written out his last will with the help of his Lawyer Josh Stafford, and being observed by 3 psychiatrists to see if he is of sound-mind. Phelan commits suicide by jumping out a window just seconds after writing his Testament, which says the rest of his estate will instead of to his money=grabbing family, to his illegitimate daughter Rachel Lane, who none of Phelan's family or associates know about or have ever seen or met.

Now after Phelan's suicide, Josh Stafford calls upon his colleague Nate O'Reilly to find Rachel, who has become a missionary in Brazil, Troy paid her to go to college but disappeared into Medical School and Seminary, and went to Brazil. O'Reilly, who has been off and on drugs and alcohol many times, been married twice and both divorced, and has 2 grown-up children from both marriages. Nate travels to Brazil to track down Rachel, and meets up with her in the jungles of Brazil where she is a missionary for the Brazilian Natives. After meeting her Nate tries to convince her to take the money and return to America, but she rejects him saying she doesn't want the money and won't return and that she's happy where she is and happy with what she's doing, and Nate starts to grow feelings for Rachel.

I loved the story, great characters, I loved the Brazil/South America setting, and I feel the story delivers a great message. I highly recommend this to all Grisham fans!!

In addition to the mesmerizing courtroom brawling and legal maneuvering, The Testament probably has the most riveting plot and dynamic characters of all of the Grisham novels I have read thus far.

Heartrending and heart-stopping all at once. The powerful ending left me stunned.

This story is set up to have three sharp rises throughout the book, in lieu of a single climax near the end. Instead of delivering these highly built up climes of anticipation to full fruition, the first is given prematurely, the second is built up then fizzles out, and the third is a moronic twist ending.

The main character is a blank slate who's only staked claim to humanity is a chemical dependency. The family that the story revolves around is just as unrelateable, however acts like a socialite orgy that would feel right at home on an MTV show. The only character that seems like he would be the most interesting, dies in the very beginning (the first "climax").

If that weren't bad enough, the majority of the book is set with the main character trudging around in South America looking for an estranged member of the family, who gets about a page and a half of attention. This book had the potential to be phenomenal, but fell straight on its ass

A billion dollars. 6 children. 3 ex wives and Rachel. This story had a little of everything. From the first chapter I wanted to know more. I have this thing where if I don’t care about what happens to the characters I don’t waste time reading the story. From the first few chapters I felt like I was personally invited by the Phelan family-into their personal lives and homes. I wanted to get to know everybody. I wanted to know everything, the good and the bad.

John Grisham is easily now one of my favorite authors. He writes with intense details that don’t weigh the story down. He creates just enough suspense to keep you turning the pages when you said you would only read one more chapter. Great story with an engaging plot! The ending was a nice surprise!

Gli ultimi capitoli che riguardano lo scontro legale vero e proprio mi sono piaciuti moltissimo, ma non posso scordare la noia che mi ha assalita per le prime 300 pagine. Molte parti sono inutili ai fini della storia, lentissime e qualche volta anche ripetitive. I personaggi sono quasi tutti delle macchiette, non veramente tridimensionali. Come dicevo, però, la parte strettamente 'legale' è coinvolgente e scritta molto bene.

This one was a bit slower moving and not as exciting as most Grisham books. It may have been better served as a novella with a lot of the middle of the story cut out. It lacks the constant twists and turns I've become used to from Grisham (bear in mind, I'm reading all of his books in order for the first time ever), and this one simply grew boring in the middle.

Hoping the next book is back to his style!

It wasn't until the window scene that I remembered reading this book before. It contained two parallel story lines about parenting. It is a terrific example of the imagination of Grisham. Some parts were a little tedious. The ending was something the reader anticipates.