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“Jake is one of
the most fully developed and engaging characters in all of Grisham’s novels.
Grisham’s acute sense of place permeates the book. Clanton and its characters
seem familiar to anyone who has spent time in a Southern town.”
- USA Today
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“Grisham’s return to Clanton is triumphant. Sycamore Row is easily the best of his books that I’ve read and ranks on my list with Stephen King’s 11/22/63 as one of the two most impressive popular novels in recent years. Grisham, at fifty-eight, has many books ahead of him, but this could be the one he’ll be remembered for. It’s an ambitious, immensely readable novel about a bitterly contested will but about other things as well. It’s often funny and sometimes tragic. If at least a few scenes don’t move you to tears, you may not be alive…Sycamore Row is enlivened by many colorful characters… Grisham has found a story that permits the full use of his powers.”
- Washington Post
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“Mr. Grisham’s gift for manipulating and
explicating legal battles makes this multifaceted one satisfyingly cagey…Mr.
Grisham knows what lawyers have been taught to do. More important, he also
knows how they actually behave…As Sycamore
Row finally reaches its trial phase, the author hits his full stride. He
knows the courtroom inside out, and he helpfully describes each little step of
these proceedings. Even if sharp-eyed readers already know how the book’s
surprises may arise…they will still miss the final whammy that Mr. Grisham has
in store.”
- New York Times
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“Grisham’s twenty-sixth adult novel and
one of his finest…Sycamore Row
reminds us that the best legal fiction is written by lawyers.”
- New York Times Book Review
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“Leave it to Grisham to make a battle
about wills nail-bitingly suspenseful in his second novel featuring lawyer Jake
Brigance…All the author’s strengths are in evidence—his capturing the rhythms
of small-town life in Clanton, Mississippi, his skill at making legal minutiae
comprehensible, and his gift at getting readers to care about his characters.”
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“A long-after sequel, of a sort, to A Time to Kill in which dogged attorney
Jake Brigance fights for justice in a Mississippi town where justice is not
always easy to come by. That’s especially true when the uncomfortable question
of race comes up, and here, it’s a doozy…Grisham, as ever, delivers a vivid,
wisecracking, and tautly constructed legal procedural from which the reader
might draw at least this lesson: You never want to wind up in front of a judge,
even one as wise as the earwig-welcoming Reuben V. Atlee, and if you do, you
want to have Jake Brigance on your side. Trademark Grisham, with carefully
situated echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird.
A top-notch thriller.”
- Kirkus Reviews
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“Reader Michael Beck does a masterly job
with all the characters, imbuing each with differences in pitch and accent; his
portrayal of Jake brings to mind Matthew McConaughey, who played Brigance in
the film. Verdict: Grisham’s works are always in high demand, and patrons will
not be disappointed.”
- Library Journal (starred review)
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“Michael Beck’s masterful narration of
John Grisham’s engaging novel about the validity of a handwritten will offers
more than a courtroom battle. Beck expertly guides the story through myriad
surprises and suspense-laden twists while affecting the drawls, twangs, and
nuances of the characters’ Mississippi dialects…Beck nails the characters
whether they’re confident, sympathetic, unsure, cocky, or even drunk. Overall, Sycamore Row is exactly the compelling
work one would expect from Grisham, and it’s even better with the narration of
Michael Beck. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award.”
- AudioFile