The Summons.

• Author: Mandell, David

by John Grisham

John Grisham's The Summons marks his return to the legal thrillers that made him a bestselling author. Ray Atlee, a law professor at the University of Virginia, is summoned home to rural Mississippi by his widowed father, a retired judge. There, as in all the Grisham novels, the twists and turns begin.

Arriving at the once grand house, he finds his father laying dead on the sofa. He searches through his father's possessions and quickly finds two surprises. A holographic will sits on a desk, dividing his father's estate between Ray and his substance abusing brother Forrest. The cabinets provide an even bigger shock. Boxes of legal stationary are filled with cash. In vintage Grisham style, no clues reveal where the money comes from or what Atlee's father intended to do with it. Atlee knows that a judge's salary couldn't account for the money nor could bribery. His father had stringent ethics and the cases before a rural judge are too small to generate that kind of cash.

Reporting the cash means paying estate taxes and sharing the remainder with his brother. Atlee has second thoughts about doing that and decides to hide the money until he can figure out a solution. Before he does, he starts receiving ominous messages. Someone out there knows about the money and wants it back now. Everyone in town is suspect. Fleeing back to the shelter of his campus brings Atlee no relief. Whoever wants the money follows him there and breaks into his apartment.

In the spirit of mystery writer Ross Macdonald, only the past will reveal the present. Atlee must find how his father got the...