The Runaway Jury: A Novel by John Grisham (Epub)

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Ebook Info

  • Published: 2010
  • Number of pages: 498 pages
  • Format: Epub
  • File Size: 1.99 MB
  • Authors: John Grisham

Description

Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake beginsroutinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juroris convinced he’s being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymousyoung woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors’ increasingly odd behavior. Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If so, by whom? And, more important, why?

User’s Reviews

Review “Marvelous!”—News-Tribune, Phoenix, Arizona”Gripping.”—Seattle Times”Marvelously Clever.”—USA Today”Entertainingly unpredictable!”—The New York Times “Fascinating. . .high–powered narration.”—Chicago Tribune”His most rewarding novel to date.”—Publishers Weekly”A real page–turner!”—Houston Chronicle”Deserves to be a runaway success.”—Atlanta Journal and Constitution”Ingeniously narrated.”—Entertainment WeeklyFrom the Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake beginsroutinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juroris convinced he’s being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymousyoung woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors’ increasingly odd behavior.Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If so, by whom? And, more important,why? –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The face of Nicholas Easter was slightly hidden by a display rack filled with slim cordless phones, and he was looking not directly at the hidden camera but somewhere off to the left, perhaps at a customer, or perhaps at a counter where a group of kids hovered over the latest electronic games from Asia. Though taken from a distance of forty yards by a man dodging rather heavy mall foot traffic, the photo was clear and revealed a nice face, clean-shaven with strong features and boyish good looks. Easter was twenty-seven, they knew that for a fact. No eyeglasses. No nose ring or weird haircut. Nothing to indicate he was one of the usual computer nerds who worked in the store at five bucks an hour. His questionnaire said he’d been there for four months, said also that he was a part-time student, though no record of enrollment had been found at any college within three hundred miles. He was lying about this, they were certain.He had to be lying. Their intelligence was too good. If the kid was a student, they’d know where, for how long, what field of study, how good were the grades, or how bad. They’d know. He was a clerk in a Computer Hut in a mall. Nothing more or less. Maybe he planned to enroll somewhere. Maybe he’d dropped out but still liked the notion of referring to himself as a part-time student. Maybe it made him feel better, gave him a sense of purpose, sounded good.But he was not, at this moment nor at any time in the recent past, a student of any sort. So, could he be trusted? This had been thrashed about the room twice already, each time they came to Easter’s name on the master list and his face hit the screen. It was a harmless lie, they’d almost decided.He didn’t smoke. The store had a strict nonsmoking rule, but he’d been seen (not photographed) eating a taco in the Food Garden with a co-worker who smoked two cigarettes with her lemonade. Easter didn’t seem to mind the smoke. At least he wasn’t an antismoking zealot.The face in the photo was lean and tanned and smiling slightly with lips closed. The white shirt under the red store jacket had a buttonless collar and a tasteful striped tie. He appeared neat, in shape, and the man who took the photo actually spoke with Nicholas as he pretended to shop for an obsolete gadget; said he was articulate, helpful, knowledgeable, a nice young man. His name tag labeled Easter as a Co-Manager, but two others with the same title were spotted in the store at the same time.The day after the photo was taken, an attractive young female in jeans entered the store, and while browsing near the software actually lit up a cigarette. Nicholas Easter just happened to be the nearest clerk, or Co-Manager, or whatever he was, and he politely approached the woman and asked her to stop smoking. She pretended to be frustrated by this, even insulted, and tried to provoke him. He maintained his tactful manner, explained to her that the store had a strict no-smoking policy. She was welcome to smoke elsewhere. “Does smoking bother you?” she had asked, taking a puff. “Not really,” he had answered. “But it bothers the man who owns this store.” He then asked her once again to stop. She really wanted to purchase a new digital radio, she explained, so would it be possible for him to fetch an ashtray. Nicholas pulled an empty soft drink can from under the counter, and actually took the cigarette from her and extinguished it. They talked about radios for twenty minutes as she struggled with the selection. She flirted shamelessly, and he warmed to the occasion. After paying for the radio, she left him her phone number. He promised to call.The episode lasted twenty-four minutes and was captured by a small recorder hidden in her purse. The tape had been played both times while his face had been projected on the wall and studied by the lawyers and their experts. Her written report of the incident was in the file, six typed pages of her observations on everything from his shoes (old Nikes) to his breath (cinnamon gum) to his vocabulary (college level) to the way he handled the cigarette. In her opinion, and she was experienced in such matters, he had never smoked.They listened to his pleasant tone and his professional sales pitch and his charming chatter, and they liked him. He was bright and he didn’t hate tobacco. He didn’t fit as their model juror, but he was certainly one to watch. The problem with Easter, potential juror number fifty-six, was that they knew so little about him. Evidently, he had landed on the Gulf Coast less than a year ago, and they had no idea where he came from. His past was a complete mystery. He rented a one-bedroom eight blocks from the Biloxi courthouse–they had photos of the apartment building–and at first worked as a waiter in a casino on the beach. He rose quickly to the rank of blackjack dealer, but quit after two months.Shortly after Mississippi legalized gambling, a dozen casinos along the Coast sprang forth overnight, and a new wave of prosperity hit hard. Job seekers came from all directions, and so it was safe to assume Nicholas Easter arrived in Biloxi for the same reason as ten thousand others. The only odd thing about his move was that he had registered to vote so quickly.He drove a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, and a photo of it was flashed on the wall, taking the place of his face. Big deal. He was twenty-seven, single, an alleged part-time student–the perfect type to drive such a car. No bumper stickers. Nothing to indicate political affiliation or social conscience or favorite team. No college parking sticker. Not even a faded dealer decal. The car meant nothing, as far as they were concerned. Nothing but near-poverty.The man operating the projector and doing most of the talking was Carl Nussman, a lawyer from Chicago who no longer practiced law but instead ran his own jury consulting firm. For a small fortune, Carl Nussman and his firm could pick you the right jury. They gathered the data, took the photos, recorded the voices, sent the blondes in tight jeans into the right situations. Carl and his associates flirted around the edges of laws and ethics, but it was impossible to catch them. After all, there’s nothing illegal or unethical about photographing prospective jurors. They had conducted exhaustive telephone surveys in Harrison County six months ago, then again two months ago, then a month later to gauge community sentiment about tobacco issues and formulate models of the perfect jurors. They left no photo untaken, no dirt ungathered. They had a file on every prospective juror.Carl pushed his button and the VW was replaced with a meaningless shot of an apartment building with peeling paint; home, somewhere in there, of Nicholas Easter. Then a flick, and back to the face.”And so we have only the three photos of number fifty-six,” Carl said with a note of frustration as he turned and glared at the photographer, one of his countless private snoops, who had explained he just couldn’t catch the kid without getting caught himself. The photographer sat in a chair against the back wall, facing the long table of lawyers and paralegals and jury experts. The photographer was quite bored and ready to bolt. It was seven o’clock on a Friday night. Number fifty-six was on the wall, leaving a hundred and forty still to come. The weekend would be awful. He needed a drink.A half-dozen lawyers in rumpled shirts and rolled-up sleeves scribbled never-ending notes, and glanced occasionally at the face of Nicholas Easter up there behind Carl. Jury experts of almost every variety–psychiatrist, sociologist, handwriting analyst, law professor, and so on–shuffled papers and thumped the inch-thick computer printouts. They weren’t sure what to do with Easter. He was a liar, and he was hiding his past, but still on paper and on the wall he looked okay.Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he was a student last year in some low-rent junior college in eastern Arizona, and maybe they were simply missing this.Give the kid a break, the photographer thought, but he kept it to himself. In this room of well-educated and well-paid suits, he was the last one whose opinion would be appreciated. Wasn’t his job to say a word.Carl cleared his throat while glancing once more at the photographer, then said, “Number fifty-seven.” The sweaty face of a young mother flashed on the wall, and at least two people in the room managed a chuckle. “Traci Wilkes,” Carl said, as if Traci was now an old friend. Papers moved slightly around the table.”Age thirty-three, married, mother of two, doctor’s wife, two country clubs, two health clubs, a whole list of social clubs.” Carl clicked off these items from memory while twirling his projector button. Traci’s red face was replaced by a shot of her jogging along a sidewalk, splendidly awash in pink and black spandex and spotless Reeboks with a white sun visor sitting just above the latest in reflective sport sunglasses, her long hair in a cute perfect ponytail. She was pushing a jogging carriage with a small baby in it. Traci lived for sweat. She was tanned and fit, but not exactly as thin as might be expected. She had a few bad habits. Another shot of Traci in her black Mercedes wagon with kids and dogs looking from every window. Another of Traci loading bags of groceries into the same car, Traci with different sneakers and tight shorts and the precise appearance of one who aspired to look forever athletic. She’d been easy to follow because she was busy to the point of being frazzled, and she never stopped long enough to look around.Carl ran through the photos of the Wilkeses’ home, a massive suburban trilevel with Doctor stamped all over it. He spent little time with these, saving the best for last. Then there was Traci, once again soaked with sweat, her designer bike nearby on the grass, sitting under a tree in a park, far away from everyone, half-hidden and–smoking a cigarette!The same photographer grinned stupidly. It was his finest work, this hundred-yard shot of the doctor’… –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Amazon.com Review Millions of dollars are at stake in a huge tobacco-company case in Biloxi, and the jury’s packed with people who have dirty little secrets. A mysterious young man takes subtle control of the jury as the defense watches helplessly, but they soon realize that he in turn is controlled by an even more mysterious young woman. Lives careen off course as they bend everyone in the case to their will. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Back Cover In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he’s being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymous young woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors’ increasingly odd behavior. Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If so, by whom? And, more important, why? –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Publisher Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake beginsroutinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juroris convinced he’s being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymousyoung woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors’ increasingly odd behavior. Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If so, by whom? And, more important,why?The Runaway Jury by John Grisham. Copyright 1996 by John Grisham. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile Millions of dollars hang in the balance of the trial at the center of Grisham’s latest legal thriller: a liability suit against the country’s largest tobacco company. Fast-paced action blends with insight into the process of trial by jury. Frank Muller turns in a truly virtuoso performance, from different shades of Southern dialect to the computer-like voice of a man who has lost his voice box to cancer. Muller has never been better. P.B.J. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review “Grisham’s most addictive courtroom thriller.””–Seattle Times””Grisham stacks his “Jury” with suspense. . . . Don’t start it unless you are prepared to stay up all night.”–“Atlanta Journal-Constitution””Couldn’t have been better . . . Carefully and persuasively detailed.”–“Los Angeles Times” “A story of genuine significance . . . entertainingly unpredictable.”–“The New York Times” –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly Grisham is either remarkably prescient or just plain lucky; because with public concerns about the tobacco companies heating up, and two major nonfiction books currently garnering a lot of attention, he has come up with a tobacco-suit novel that lights up the courtroom. In a Mississippi Gulf Coast town, the widow of a lifelong smoker who died prematurely of lung cancer is suing Big Tobacco. Enter Rankin Fitch, a dark genius of jury fixing, who has won many such trials for the tobacco companies and who foresees no special problems here. Enter also a mysterious juror, Nicholas Easter, whom Fitch’s army of jury investigators and manipulators can’t quite seem to track-and his equally mysterious girlfriend Marlee, who soon shows Fitch she knows even more about what’s happening in the jury room than he does. The details of jury selection are fascinating and the armies of lawyerly hangers-on and overpaid consultants that surround such potentially profitable (to either side) cases are horribly convincing. The cat-and-mouse game played between Nicholas, Marlee and Fitch over the direction of the jury quickly becomes hair-raising as the stakes inch ever higher. As usual with Grisham, the writing is no more than workmanlike, the characterizations are alternatively thin and too broad, but all is redeemed by his patented combination of expertise and narrative drive. What makes The Runaway Jury his most rewarding novel to date is that it is fully enlisted in an issue of substance, in which arguments of genuine pith are hammered out and resolved in a manner that is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. It’s a thriller for people who think, and Jesse Helms won’t like it one bit. First printing of 2.8 million; major ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection. (May) ~ MysteryCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Library Journal Grisham is back, and not surprisingly he’s addressing one of the hottest topics of our time: the jury system. The plot is under wraps, but the catalog copy observes ominously: “Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.”Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ How believable is the fact that Nicholas East is selected for jury duty in the first place? In my entire life, it happened to me ONCE. And he just gets it like that apparently on demand. Well, he apparently hacked into the court clerk computer. Really? In those years – hackers? A man who otherwise has no technical skills whatsoever, not that were mentioned? Sorry, anything than comes next is just more fantasy piled up on fantasy. Not a single character in this book makes me sympathetic. Least of all Nicholas and Marlee – these are just plain self-serving crooks. I am just half through it so maybe in the end something happens to make it all right, but I cannot see how. Reading is too slow, I have been on this one for 2 weeks while really good book would normally last for me couple days.

⭐ I watched the movie several years ago, but had never read the book. I did like the movie better than the book. I think part of that is due to the fact that the movie focuses on gun violence (a more current concern) and the book (which was originally released in 1996) debates the effects of cigarettes. At this point, in 2018, we’re all more than aware of the negatives about cigarettes. Of course it’s not John Grisham’s fault that I’m reading the book more than 20 years later; I’m just saying I think it made it a little harder for me to connect. One thing that I liked much more about the book is that you get a more in-depth view of how much Rankin Fitch and his team go after the jury to try and secure their votes.

⭐ The movie handled the gun industry, whereas the book attacks the cigarette industry. Same characters, names, locations with some interesting twists. The book does a better job of it “makes you feel good” then did the movie… enjoyed both very much! Worth the buy on both!

⭐ This story captures the essence of the little guy fighting corporate big business for justice. The jury panel is made up of a brilliant mixture of personalities each with there own story to tell and each with a weakness ready to be exploited.The two main characters offer the reader hero’s that are masters of deceit, witty, intelligent and quick on their feet to stay one if not two steps ahead of their opponents. A wonderful read keeping you involved with a story which will change history.

⭐ I have loved John Grisham’s books, however this was a complete loss and I had to give it up. It’s only message, ad nauseum, was to quite smoking as lawyers waged battles and a jury had minor dramas. Pages of scientific preaching. A pretend mystery.

⭐ The Runaway Jury is set in the courtroom of what promises to be a landmark Big Tobacco trial that could deal a fatal blow to the good folks who make, advertise, and sell “cancer sticks.” The real action, though, the convoluted million dollar (and mostly illegal) shenanigans swirling around that courtroom, is what makes this book a bonafide page turner. As the book’s title suggests, the focus relentlessly dogs twelve embarrassingly ordinary people (plus three “alternates”) and therefore by extension the throng of professional manipulators, spoilers, and thugs who will stop at nothing to assure a verdict favoring their client. It’s rough and tumble all the way, and part of the fun is never being quite sure until the end the real motives and sympathies of some of the main players. There is an abundance of loose threads that finally come together, and if you’re a reader who likes to see the bad guys get their comeuppance, this book will not disappoint you.

⭐ I had not read a John Grisham book for some years. I had always enjoyed his books, so I decided to give The Runaway Jury a go. I found the theme interesting and it fitted in with what has happened in recent times in the battle between the suppliers of cigarettes, trying to keep their products going, against the anti smoking lobby. The characters in this book were interesting, and all the side stories related to them gave the theme a big lift. Grisham keeps things going at a good pace, with plenty of surprises, laughs and interest. I enjoyed the book very much, and I will be on the look out for another book by this author.

⭐ Loved this book! It is one of my favorite, maybe even my favorite , of all of John Grisham’s books! A thrill ride throughout, it builds momentum slowly, gradually, and then drops off the cliff, just like a roller coaster.

⭐ One of Grisham’s best. Filled with lies and manipulations by lawyers (and some in the jury pool, too), as well as well-researched stats and figures about tobacco and the dangers of smoking. Considering when this was written, one could say it was a little ahead of its time.

⭐ I always enjoy a Grisham book. Just when you think you’ve read them all, you realize there are ten more that just sounded like something you already read. I find these perfect for either a mountain cabin get away or on the beach. When you want something that’s not too heavy but still can draw you in.

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