The judge (novel)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The judge (original title: The Summons ) is a novel by the American author John Grisham which was published in February 2002. After his father dies, Ray Atlee finds out that his father was extremely wealthy, but hides the money from his drug addict brother out of fear of having to share the money.

content

Law professor Ray Atlee complies with the request of his father Reuben V. Atlee, a now retired judge, and visits him to find out the division of the estate between him and his drug-addicted brother Forrest. But when he finally arrives, his father is already dead. The old judge apparently died of natural causes shortly before his arrival. But it is not his death that upsets his son Ray completely. Searching the house, he finds several boxes of cash, over three million dollars in total, which he cannot explain. He lets the money disappear as quickly as possible so that he doesn't have to share it with his brother Forrest. He fears that the money will disappear at the next dealer . Forrest does not suspect, the estate is divided fairly and the brothers separate again. Ray goes in search of the origin of money and explores all legal and illegal possibilities. So he goes to the casino to try out how much money you can get through regular winnings, but finds out that it would hardly be possible to amass that much money. Since he uses his father's banknotes and he is not wanted by the police afterwards, he concludes that the banknotes are not marked and therefore probably cannot come from an illegal operation.

Ray Atlee becomes more and more concerned that his house has been broken into several times and someone is apparently looking for the money. He hides it in rented containers, but receives photos of these containers by mail. Someone knows about the money. Ray finds out that his father took on and ruled cases on a proxy basis after he retired. As he goes through these cases, he finds out that in one of these cases a client was awarded a lot of money. His attorney Patton French, a star attorney whom this judgment helped to achieve a glamorous career and made rich, returned the favor to Reuben Atlee by handing him these three million. Since the latter never accepted money for his cases, he did not touch it until he finally died and Ray found it. Ray soon received threats again. One of these threats tells him to bring the money back to his father's house. Terrified, he follows the threat. Shortly afterwards the house is attacked and set on fire, Ray can only get out of the house with difficulty and drives away. On the way, he is stopped by a police patrol for driving too fast and is suspected of having set his father's house on fire. The evidence speaks against him: On the one hand, the house was insured much higher than the two brothers would ever have received for it, and he was also seen by a neighbor flinging the house shortly before the fire. The money apparently also fell victim to the flames.

Ray Atlee gets rid of the suspicions with the help of his lawyer Harry Rex Vonner and gets the tip that his brother could be behind everything. He finds him in a hidden rehab clinic, where he wants to free himself from his drug addiction again and again, and confronts him. Ray finds out that his brother was with her father the day before him and that the judge was in agony. He helped him out to get him out of the pain and later found the money. He wanted to put his brother on a test to see if he would properly share the money or keep it to himself. Forrest thinks his brother failed the test. He admits that he set fire to the house and also owns the money, but wants to keep it to himself for the time being, at least until he's released from rehab.

Links to other novels

Several characters from this novel also appear in other John Grisham novels. Star lawyer Patton French also plays a role in the novel The Guilt . In both novels he is portrayed as an apparently infinitely rich person and in both books an episode takes place on his luxury yacht. In addition, Harry Rex Vonner, the lawyer from The Jury , The List and The Heiress, is also back again. Furthermore, Ray's deceased father, Reuben V. Atlee, is one of the main characters in The Heiress as a trial judge.

literature