Slow moving and tedious read about the discovery of lots of unacccounted for money found by the law professor son of a retired, well respected, elderly and ill judge whose other son is a chronic, in-and-out of rehab drug addict. Law professor Ray Atlee and his drug addicted brother, Forrest, receive a summons from their not so fatherly father, Judge Reuben V. Atlee, to return to the old family home to discuss the administration of the Judge's estate. Alas, upon arrival from his home in Virginia to the family homestead in Mississippi, Ray enters his father's unchanged study to find the judge lying on the sofa and dressed neatly in his "judge's" attire. Eventually Ray realizes his father is dead and a new will is found on the judge's desk, as well as hidden boxes of cash totaling over $3 million dollars. Where did the money come from? Was it accounted for in the estate? Was the money legal tender and honestly obtained by the Judge? Should he inform his brother, Forrest? Should he keep the money?
Thus begins a rather tedious tale of hiding the money while he attempts to discover where the Judge got this large amount of money. There are a few suspenseful moments when Ray discovers he is being watched, threatened and frightened by some unknown person(s) who knows Ray has the money; but the suspense does not rise above the slow moving plot of keeping the money hidden while he tries to learn how the Judge managed to accumulate the millions. Many road trips back and forth between Virginia and Mississippi, the diversion of Ray's interest in flying and the purchase of a new airplane, the suspected gang of brothers wanting the money, the trip to the coastal area with no new revelations, all with the trunk of his sports car loaded with bags of money as a hiding place where he could keep close eye on it seemed far fetched and unrealistic. The turn of events at the end of the story was good, yet also a bit of a cliff hanger.

COVID PANDEMIC: 5 GRISHAMS IN 10 DAYS
So you have $3 million bucks from your family's estate. Bad guys know you have it. What do you do? Drive around endlessly, parking in front of cheap motels? This guy is a Professor. Me? I'd have gone to see the sheriff, explained the issue, agreed on a deal in which we both hire a boat off the coast of Miami, head to the Bahamas, deposit the cash in 2 accounts with an agreement that BOTH of us will show up in 5 years and claim our shares after a bit of plastic surgery. Or just bury it in a grave in a nearby churchyard with the sheriff's help, then take off with the totally hot and rich sheriff's wife (worth $10 million) and let 'im have the $3million. Or buy $3 million in lottery tickets at the same 7-11, cause I'm stupid. This COULD have been an excellent novel. Grisham has become hit-or-miss.

Easy read but an annoying ending. Spent 1/3 of the book going down rabbit holes that added nothing to the overall story and ended up being meaningless. Written in typical JG fashion and had its moments but not one of his better novels.

I rate John Grisham's books in three tiers, and this book falls in the middle one. "A Time to Kill", "The Firm", and "The Pelican Brief" stand at the top while "The Partner" falls to the bottom. Being a sports fanatic, I would also put his "Calicoe Joe" and "Bleachers" in the middle tier. But anyway, more on the novel.

I will say that the ending did throw me for a bit of a loop, and it was one of his harder to guess resolutions. One thing about his style that I don't like as much is how everything is wrapped up in the last four chapters or so. It's very difficult to have such a brief resolution and conclusion for such a detailed book, and I think that the rapid fire of dense information that is unloaded upon the reader could be delivered in an alternative manner.

As for the story, I did quite enjoy the ups and downs of Ray's adventure, and I liked where the plot took him. Grisham dabbles with difficult motifs of greed and trust, and I like how they tie into the book with different characters. I also liked how quick the story was to read and how well the plot dragged the reader in. Grisham's books do tend to do that, and it is one thing I appreciate.

"Sunkoka blaiviai galvoti,kai randi tėvą mirusį,paskui tris milijonus dolerių grynais,ir suvoki,kad apie pinigus žino dar kažkas ir mielai dėl jų tave nudėtų.
Godumas - keistas padaras".

Miršta visų gerbiamas teisėjas,ir testamento vykdytojų yra paskiriamas vyriausias sūnus. Tas sūnus netyčia randa 27 dėžes,kuriose yra virš 3 milijonų grynais.Apie tai niekam neprasitaria,net jauniausiam broliui,kuris turi bėdų.
Vat čia ir prasideda intriga,kai reikia išsiaiškinti pinigų paslaptį.
Vyriausias sūnus sulaukia grąsinančių laiškų dėl pinigų, į jo butą du kartus įsilaužiama,prasideda bauginimas ir kiti negeri dalykai.
Pamažu ima aiškėti, iš kur pas mirusį tėvą galėjo atsirasti tokia didelė suma,nes jis gyveno taupiai,ir daug pinigų aukojo labdarai.
Ir tuo pačiu yra paslaptingas žmogus,kuris nori tuos pinigus atgauti.
Įtampa išlaikyta iki paskutinio puslapio,buvau gerai suklaidinta,nes jau atrodė žinoma,kam tų pinigų reikėjo.Bet...
Tikrai netikėta pabaiga,kai viskas išaiškėja,nebuvau numačiusi tokio finalo.

Meh. That's really all I've got to say about this book. It was just mediocre. The entire time I was reading it, I was barely interested in what happened, and it was only that teensy tiny bit of interest that kept me going. But the ending wasn't much to get excited about, so I was slightly let down in that regard as well.

My main problem was that I just didn't like Ray. I'm sorry, but he was just a dudly oldish guy. Old people are interesting. They have stories to tell, and often don't care as much what others think of them, which makes them be more fun to read about. But this guy wasn't old. He was just middle aged-ish. And there's nothing wrong with being in that age group, but he was such a boring person to go along with it. Even the mystery aspect wasn't enough to make him interesting.

If I had to sum up this entire book in one sentence, it'd be really easy. It's about a boring guy with some serious family issues. Unfortunately, that's just about all there is to it.

The plot was a bit thin, but well written nonetheless. Also a pretty surprising ending.

The plot has a fun premise. The paranoia is overplayed.

Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the Univeristy of Virginty. He is fourty three, divorced, single and reserved. His background is something that he wants to forget but he soon has to face his past. Judge Atleee is his elderly father that lives in Mississippi, he is a retired judge. During his reiging, he was respected by many people. Forest is his younger brother who cannot bridle his drinking or his drug usage. Ray is the only one he can depend on, and he does it unwillingtly. After the Judge suddenly dies, Ray finds out a secret that can haunt him, and he is faced with the decision to either keep it or tell it. This is a powerful and intiruging book by a respected author.

The main character, Ray Atlee, is a law professor with a good salary at the University of Virginia. He has a brother, Forrest, and a father, known to many as Judge Reuben V. Atlee. Ray is sent to his father's house in Clanton, Mississippi, to discuss issues regarding the old man's will and estate. To do this, Ray has to go to fictional Ford County, Mississippi, the setting for four of John Grisham's other books including A Time To Kill. When he finds his father dead in the study, Ray discovers a sum of over $3 million in the house, money which is not part of Judge Atlee's will. Ray immediately thinks the money is "dirty" because his father could not possibly have made so much money in his career.

Assuming that he is the only one who knows about the money, Ray decides to take it without making it officially part of the estate, and does not tell anyone about it: he knows that if he made it a part of the estate, taxes would take most of the money. But later reality proves otherwise. Ray is being followed; someone else knows about the money. After his own investigations into the roots of the money and the identity of his shadow—including trips to casinos and shady meetings with prominent southern lawyers—he eventually discovers that Forrest has the money. He finds Forrest in a drug rehab compound and confronts him. At the end both part, with Forrest telling Ray that he will contact him in a year.

This is a great book. I love a good courtroom. Highly recommend.

I found this book on CD at my local library. They were having a sale, so I grabbed this CD set.






This turned out to be a mystery about a son finding 3 million dollars in cash, stashed in boxes, in his deceased father's home. Deceased father was a well respected judge.





Someone knows that Ray has found this money, and is intimidating him to return it with acts of violence.







The mystery is solved in the final 2 chapters. It was so Anti-climactic that I felt like part of the book was missing. But NO!! All pages were accounted for.





What a total waste of time!!

Another excellent novel by John Grisham.
Looking at other reviews of this book on Goodreads it appears that readers either loved it or hated it with no middle ground. For me who I admit love the easy way John Grisham writes and enjoys his excellent plots and character development though it was a very good read. Maybe not full of action and court cases but nevertheless plenty of intrigue and mystery.I agree certainly not the best John Grisham book but the standard is so high.