I first read The Runaway Jury when I was in high school then decided to reread two weeks ago. For those who haven’t read it, or seen the rather errr.. film version, the plot is about a widow whose husband died of lung cancer. On this jury are all manner of average citizens, except that one juror, Nicholas, a law school dropout, has managed to penetrate county records, get a fictitious name added to the jury roll, and then have that non-person be selected to hear the case.
The plot is a little preposterous. Maybe I am naive enough to believe that it is impossible for so much jury tampering to go on. And I hated Nicholas and Marlee for the $402M verdict. Hell, the Widow Wood don’t deserve that much money!
Despite the plot’s preposterousness, the book is a real page-turner. It made me look at the judicial system in a different way.
It’s one of my favorite Grisham novels alongside The Client, A Time to Kill and The Rainmaker.
[...] the Years of My Life Jurying “The Runaway Jury” I first read The Runaway Jury when I was in high school then decided to reread two weeks ago. For [...]
I have to admit, I saw the movie but haven’t read the book yet. Sounds like it’s much better than the movie version, but isn’t that pretty much always how it is?
Since you like John Grisham’s works, you might also like James Ross. His first novel, Lifetime Loser, reads very much like an early Grisham with lots of suspense, corruption, and deceit to keep you turning the pages.