Sycamore Row by John Grisham - A Review

                With John Grisham, expectations are always high and to his credit, he has managed to deliver every single time, barring a few which was nothing more than a blip on his exceptional repertoire. Now, the master of legal thrillers presents the sequel to A Time to Kill, his maiden novel, which has garnered immense critical acclaim and love from readers alike, and is regarded as one of the most important works in popular fiction in recent times. Does the much-awaited sequel score over its predecessor? Keep on reading to know more.

                “In Mississippi, everything is about race, don’t ever forget that,” says Lucien Wilbanks, the eccentric gaffer, to Jake Brigance. Yes, racism is the theme again. Set three years after the dramatic trial of Carl Lee Hailey, Grisham takes us back to the fictional town of Clanton in the fictional Ford County, Mississippi.  Jake has a small rented apartment as his abode; his old Victorian home having been burnt to the ground by some fanatics of the notorious Ku Klux Klan. Business is slow and Jake is still a struggling street lawyer.

                The action jumps off from the first page itself. Seth Hubbard, a millionaire and a dying cancer patient, hangs himself on the piece of land once known as Sycamore Row. But not before bequeathing almost his entire fortune to his black maid and cutting out his family out of the will, except for his brother Ancil Hubbard. ‘Fight them Mr. Brigance, to the bitter end. We must prevail,’ says Seth Hubbard, in his suicide note, to Jake. The lawyer, out of the blue, finds himself embroiled in a racial controversy, where passions are soaring and the stakes are high. The will, if it steers past the storm of the courtroom, will leave a black woman as the richest person in Ford County in its wake. Too much to accept for the fuddy-duddies of the rural South.

               

                Once the milieu has been set, the events start unfolding at a tremendous pace. The town is abuzz with rumours and unscrupulous lawyers are circling like hawks, each of them wanting a slice of the proverbial pie. The pace of the story-telling is very high and the reader will enjoy the adrenaline rush stemming from the twists and turns and tantalizing moments which are so trademark Grisham. The sleazy divorce lawyer Harry Rex Vonner and Lucien Wilbanks are involved in the action as well.

                But what takes the total reading experience a notch higher is the final twist, where the suspense is unravelled and the mystery surrounding Seth Hubbard’s shocking decision of putting his entire fortune in the hands of his maid is decoded. As I mentioned earlier, Seth commits suicide on a particular piece of land which is the title of the book but that’s not why the novel is named Sycamore Row. The end is unpredictable, even for seasoned readers of thrillers.

                The mind-boggling twist at an unexpected juncture is the forte of Grisham and he manages to concoct plenty of them in this novel. Comparisons to A Time to Kill are imminent. However, in spite of the excellence of the book, a lack of depth is palpable. A cold-blooded murder by a black vigilante is always going to be more tense than a will contest. There are no madmen from a chauvinist cult nor is the sense of responsibility as a lawyer on the part of Jake as strong as was in the Hailey trial. Though the novel doesn’t disappoint, it doesn’t exceed expectations either.

                 If you are an aficionado of courtroom dramas, do not miss Sycamore Row. It provides 550 pages of high-octane entertainment and if you loved A Time to Kill, you will love this one as well. Watch the book trailer here-