Gray Mountain by John Grisham

While I've read both good and bad reviews for Grisham’s latest offering, I have to come down solidly on the side of it being a really good book. Yes, it’s an ‘issue book’. The issue is Mountaintop Removal, a method of strip mining that destroys the mountains, wildlife and water supply in coal country. The novel tells the story of Samantha, a young lawyer from corporate New York who takes a position in a legal aid clinic in Virginia, deep in the Appalachian Mountains. Instead of big money clients, hers are the regions poor. It is a foreign world to Samantha, one that will tug on her emotions, and the reader’s too. This is not a powerful, literary novel. It’s a good story, told in classic Grisham style. Settle in by the fire with a good glass of wine and prepare to be entertained. It’s what Grisham does best.