''Gray Mountain'' is a

legal thriller The legal thriller genre is a type of crime fiction genre that focuses on the proceedings of the investigation, with particular reference to the impacts on courtroom proceedings and the lives of characters. The courtroom proceedings and legal a ...

novel by

John Grisham John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Am ...

, published in hardcover on October 23, 2014. The book is set in

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

after the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

and follows third-year associate Samantha Kofer after the

Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, was the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis. After the financial services firm was notified of a pending credit downgrade due to its heavy position in subprime mortgages, the Federal Re ...

, when she becomes a

legal clinic A legal clinic (also law clinic or law school clinic) is a legal aid or law school program providing services to various clients and often hands-on-legal experience to law school students. Clinics are usually directed by clinical professors. Le ...

intern in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

country.

Plot

Samantha Kofer is a lawyer at a major

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

law firm, which is hit hard at the onset of the

. Rather than lay her off, the firm suggests that Sam conduct a charity service while she is put on

furlough A furlough (; from nl, verlof, "leave of absence") is a temporary leave of employees due to special needs of a company or employer, which may be due to economic conditions of a specific employer or in society as a whole. These furloughs may be s ...

for a year. Sam takes up on the offer since she has no other choice and relocates to

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

. She finds a job with a woman named Mattie, who runs a

legal aid Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people who are unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to co ...

firm in the town of Brady. Mattie and another woman, Annette, take up cases in the town. At first, Sam does not fit in, but eventually warms up to Mattie and the townspeople. Sam eventually meets Mattie's nephew, Donovan Gray. Donovan fills in that he and his firm have been battling against the strip-coal mining businesses in the town. Several employees of the coal mines work themselves until they are sick and the businesses have cut corners on safety measures, resulting in a few deaths. The coal mining has also contaminated the town's water supply. Sam meets Donovan's brother Jeff, who acquired some important documents from the coal businesses, showing that the companies' owners deliberately allowed the sludge from the mines to runoff into the rivers. Donovan intends to sue the companies, but he is killed in a mysterious plane crash. Jeff is convinced that the coal mine owners sabotaged Donovan's plane in order to keep the evidence from leaking out.

Notable facts

The novel describes the great danger to the environment posed by

strip-mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

for coal. Grisham consulted with Mary Cromer, an attorney with the Appalachian Citizen's Law Center and a

Washington and Lee University School of Law The Washington and Lee University School of Law (W&L Law) is the professional graduate law school of Washington and Lee University. It is a private American Bar Association-accredited law school located in Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley reg ...

alumna, as research for the novel. This is one of the few Grisham novels which feature a strong female protagonist (Samantha Kofer). Scully & Pershing, the law firm in New York City that Kofer is employed by, is the same firm that employed Kyle McAvoy in Grisham's novel '' The Associate'' (2009).

Notes

External links

Website
at JGrisham.com
Official website
at

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

2014 American novels Novels by John Grisham Novels set in Appalachia Novels set in Virginia Novels set in New York City Legal thriller novels American thriller novels Doubleday (publisher) books Hodder & Stoughton books {{2010s-thriller-novel-stub