For Samantha Kofer, an associate at one of those big firms, her plight would be a year’s furlough, with an unpaid internship in a non-profit agency, and the hope of someday returning to a kind of normalcy.
She had grown up with two attorney parents with very different styles: her mother, Karen, worked for the Department of Justice, and her father, Marshall, was a big moneymaker and risk taker, and had paid the price a few years before by serving time for corruption.
When she settles on an internship at the Mountain Legal firm in Brady, Virginia, Samantha had no clue what she would be up against. She was soon struck by the reality of strip mining, environmental issues, and black lung cases, and she would also learn what it was like to be followed by crooks from the coal industry, interspersed with regular FBI searches when a big case against the coal companies turned dangerous.
Gray Mountain is the story of an Appalachian countryside torn up by the coal industry, with lawyers fighting against the pillage brutalized by ruthless bullies. Samantha’s clients also included poor families suffering from other kinds of economic burdens, and she would soon learn how good it felt to really connect with her clients.
Donovan Gray, whose childhood home had been violated by the mining, had turned his early pain and loss into the kind of legal practice that took on the heavy hitters gladly. What would happen to remind him of the fragility of those who take big risks? How would Samantha eventually decide her future when the time drew near?
A legal thriller that had me wondering what would happen next, and then pondering who, if anyone, would ultimately win. I gave this one 4.5 stars.
RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS 
It’s been some time since I’ve read a John Grisham book (I had read them all up until The Summons, I think it was) Might start to look some of them up again …
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It had been a while since I read him, too, BR….I did enjoy revisiting the land of legal thrillers. Thanks for stopping by.
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Have to admit I’ve never read JG, although I know he has big success with his legal thrillers. In actual fact I kind of like legal battles. Great that you had another good read.
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I really enjoyed some of his earlier ones, like The Pelican Brief and The Firm…and now this one, Thanks for stopping by, Kathryn…I usually read Scottoline’s legal thrillers these days, but this one was also a nice dip into the genre.
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I enjoyed this novel too. It is an important topic – the stripping of Gay Mountain.
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Definitely! I read a rather HUGE chunkster about the strip-mining disaster a couple of years ago, by Jonathan Franzen, called Freedom (572 pages, but it felt like more). But that one lost me along the way…there was a lot of excess baggage, IMO. I don’t like when the point gets buried beneath a lot of other stuff, lol, so Gray Mountain suited me. Thanks for stopping by, Pat.
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The topic is an important one — so much destruction with strip-mining — that I’d like to pick this story up. thanks!
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Thanks for stopping by, Susan, and I enjoyed this book. Hope you do, too.
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I’m glad that you enjoyed this. I haven’t read Grisham in a while either. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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I’m glad you enjoyed the review, Martha…thanks for stopping by.
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