22/11/2019
I’ve been reading various types of thriller recently to see what makes them tick. ‘Gray Mountain’ was a slow-burner, but a good read. I got into it gradually over the first 50-100 pages, after which I was fully immersed. John Grisham is one of the most prominent writers of legal thrillers, a genre which seems to have grown enormously since the 1980’s and ‘90s, both in print and on the screen.To paraphrase Grisham, the trick with these thrillers usually revolves around innocent people getting involved in perilous, complicated conspiracies, and then somehow coming out in one piece at the end of the book. In addition to watching our protagonist getting in and out of various scrapes, ‘Gray Mountain’ also works as a thoughtful, well-researched eco-thriller.
The heroine, Samantha Kofer, is a very successful, high-earning big city lawyer made redundant in the huge financial crash of 2008. The story then follows the time-honoured ‘city girl goes to the country to rediscover real values’ pattern, as she takes some work with a nonprofit legal practice in remote rural Appalachia, intending to bide her time until she can return to her cosmopolitan existence in the city.
Samantha’s sense of purpose kicks in when she sees the personal and environmental devastation caused by the huge, rapacious coal companies, who literally blow the tops off mountains to get at the coal, and fight tooth and nail to avoid compensating the miners they have poisoned with the dust.
Despite herself, she gradually gets too deeply involved to just scurry back to New York, finding herself embroiled in dangerous cases via a local crusading lawyer. This also provides a romantic sub-plot, and some other interesting twists via other local characters and Samantha’s powerful, separated parents.
The characters are a little flat, but serviceable. I found myself believing in them through the strength of the dramatic situations that Grisham creates, including very well researched insights into the appalling situations existing in Appalachia as a result of ‘Big Coal’ trampling over the local population. Some of the cases are very touching, and I found myself driven to do a little research of my own based on Grisham’s discoveries. ‘Gray Mountain’ is ultimately an entertaining and satisfying read, and stays with you for some time afterwards.
