This is a book of suspense in which, once again, Mr. Grisham keep us reading and reading one chapter after another. Eventhough this is a fiction book, I think that the lawyer's environment is not very far, or not far at all, from what he presents, showing us the hidden intrigues within the lawyer's firm. I encourage you to read this book, it's great!

Acabo de leer El Cliente (en versión castellana) de Grisham y me queda bien la impresión que deja la novela. Como todo el mundo, ya había visto la película con Susan Sarandon y Tommy Lee Jones (los puristas se quejaron porque los actores no eran fieles a las personas en el libro), pero las diferencias no me molestan - no son importantes. ¡Cuidado! ha sido traducido por un español (Tremps), entonces hay "camareros", se "cogen" taxis y todo lo demás - si no os molesta, ¡comprad esta versión castellana!

... was a bit like watching one of those special-effects extravaganza disaster movies -- the focus of the book, it's sole redeeming feature, was the disaster itself, in this case Cujo. The simplistic attempts at psychology were relatively weak, shallow, and somewhat cliche-driven, or so it seemed to me. However, I read this book with the same guilty-pleasure mindset one gets from watching such a disaster movie as I've previously mentioned, and to this end, the shallowness of the characters only added to my enjoyment. This was because the book's focal point, for me, was "wouldn't it be cool if a very large, powerful dog got rabies and went on a rampage?" If the characters had enough depth to actually make me care about whether or not they got eaten by a rabid dog, then the book would have ceased to draw from me that morbid, voyeuristic fascination which it did.

I've only read to other books by Stephen King so far, "Needful Things," and "Gerald'! s Game," both of which, I thought were of much higher quality than this -- Both were very well, and intelligently written, and the focus seemed not so much to scare the reader, or to indulge their morbid curiousity, but to reveal and explore the external and internal landscapes of the various characters involved. Overall, this book was a dissapointment, especially after reading all the good reviews found here. Nevertheless, the few hours I spent reading this book were anything but boring.

This book has a certain personal relevance for me because we have a Cujo of our own - a tiny little Bijon Frise (if you're not familiar with the breed, think of a toy poodle, only one specifically designed for wimps). We selected him based on the unlikelihood of his devouring our newborn twins - although now that they have grown up a bit, our concerns tend more in the direction of the twins devouring him, particularly our son, who has exhibited exotic dietary preferences. I initially sought to give our pet a fitting name along the lines of Bitsy, Poofblossom, or Fluffmuffin. However I was overruled by my wife, who insisted on Cujo. You see Carlotta is far younger than me, and occasionally hatches little pranks that play on my relative ignorance of popular culture (true story: I almost consented to naming our slightly pudgy infant son "Cartman" after she persuaded me that this was the name of a faded but celebrated aristocratic family from Maine).

Anyhow, Cujo the book is another gripping tale from the venomous quill of Steven King. In it, a friendly Saint Bernard is bitten by a rabid bat. Soon enough he's demonstrably losing his mind (foaming at the mouth, biting without provocation, stalking small children, even campaigning on behalf of the local Democratic Party in one particularly unsettling scene). The finale is a dramatic showdown between Cujo and some family members that he corners in a parked car. As Cujo starts bashing the car's windshield in with his head, one is forced to think of one's relationship with one's own dog. I once thought that our Cujo was the devil's own seed due to his penchant for pilfering food intended for me and as well as his occasional gassy episodes. But on the balance I suppose we're doing just fine with the old boy.

I have only read two Stephen King Books.(The Shining and Cujo) I like Cujo more. This book can get very scarey and sort of sad at the end. I can't understand why so many people gave it a low rate. This book is full of action at the end and down right scary because this book seems as it could be true. All you need is to be stuck in a broken car with a 200 plus pound rabid dog outside that just wants to kill you. I recomend this to all King's fans

For those reviewers intent on pointing out Grisham's research errors, all I can say is "Bah-humbug!" From the taut suspense of "The Partner" to the colorfully drawn era of "A Painted House", Grisham has always been able to keep our interest with characters whose motivations seem very like our own, or at least like someone we know. In "Skipping Christmas", Grisham brings us a tale that is very believable in its motivations. Who among us hasn't bellyached about the madness of the holiday season?

Something different from Grisham's other books, this is a short gift of a tale, a one-sitting fable that reminds us to keep our priorities right in the midst of holiday chaos. Luther and Nora Krank are wonderful protagonists, entwined in their own plot to skip Christmas. The ending, if a bit predictable, is still likely to bring laughs and tears. Grisham touches us in a simple and effective manner. My wife and I, joined on the couch, had to put the book down a couple of times to regain control after particularly comedic scenes. (Did I mention wiping my eyes on my sleeves?) Through it's simplicity, the story works, the message sinks in, and--if I'm one to predict the future--the TV movie will be out by next Yuletide. (Yes, my wife and I will watch.)

Who *hasn't* felt the way Luther and Nora Krank feel when they decide to sit this Christmas out? Identification with that feeling immediately connects you to the main characters of this charming, outrageously funny book. The societal pressures the Kranks have to face in their quest for a non-holiday holiday are those that, while made larger for the sake of fiction, we all face when deviating from the norm. More subtly, I imagine Grisham has illuminated what it must feel like to be one of the small groups of Americans who don't celebrate Christmas *any* year.

I dare not say more lest I give away any of the plot of this absolutely terrific book. Just read it, you'll love it -- as long as you're looking for something fun. This book is not meant to be great literary fiction. It is a light-hearted Christmas tale with a sappy ending. (Would you really want anything different for a Christmas story?) It's a quick read (I read it in two hours) and laugh-out-loud funny. I actually laughed myself to tears reading this book -- a first for me!

I highly recommend this tale as a respite from the stresses of the holidays -- perhaps while waiting to get on a plane to your holiday destination!

This book is, as it says somewhere on the cover, "a modern holiday classic". It is about a couple whose daughter leaves to join the Peace Corps and help people less fortunate. Her parents decide that since she isn't going to be home with them, they will skip the hassle of Christmas all together (no lights, no tree, no cards, not a single thing) and go on a ten day cruise. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) things do not work out at all as planned.
This book is very short and sweet. I read in one sitting while sitting in my favorite chair under an afghan (it's cold here in Cleveland!) on Christmas Eve. It not only entertained me and made me laugh, but it also put me in the mood for the holidays. I will, without a doubt be re-reading this book many Christmas Eves to come. It has become a part of my holiday ritual and I'm sure you will feel the same once you read it.
(By the way, Grisham is coming out with another book called The Summons this coming February. It is a regular length Grisham book unlike this one, and from the title, I'm guessing it has lawyers in it which means Grisham is returning to his original genre. Two books in one year! What luck for us Grisham fans!)

I love John Grisham. I've read most of his work and most of them are excellent. The Chamber has to be his worst book. It's a nice tale about a death row inmate, along very similar lines of "Dead Man Walking" - but there is no intrigue or plot twists, or anything else that makes for a page-turning suspense novel. I kept waiting for something out of the blue to happen, and nothing did. I even had thoughts of things that might happen, trying to guess a potential plot twist, and nothing happened. You are introduced to characters who appear throughout the story, which you expect to become a huge player at the end of the story, only to find them dissapear without a trace. Grisham seems to be building another suspensful, mind blowing story and then 3/4 of the way through the book almost every sub plot disappears never to resurface. When I got to the end of the book I thought I was missing a few chapters because there seemed to be som much left unsaid. I would strongy urge you to stay away from this book - or at least if you read it, don't expect a suspense novel, just a nice description of what someone goes through when on death row.

The Chamber: Adam Hall is a Chicago attorney who takes on a case that could destroy his life. His racist grandfather Sam Cayhall is sitting on death row for the fatal bombing of an office building in the 1960's that paralysed a man and killed his two children. Adam senses there is more to the story and while the nation waits for his execution, Adam tries to uncover the truth with the help of many people including his own aunt who at first wants nothing to do with him or Sam, but she eventually begins to sense a need for closure and so she begins to talk of life with a father like Sam. As he gets closer to the truth he puts his life on the line. Grisham has tackled racism before, but never quite like this. Here we have a character that isn't sorry for what happened all those years ago. Making the main character someone that we cannot like makes it hard to have to read material like this, but Grisham makes the novel work and doesn't become to preachy. The only problem is that the book is really long and I think that the books content could have been trimmed. Besides that it is still another sure fire hit from the master writer.

John Grisham produces another great book here. It starts out with a bombing gone awry. One man meant to only bomb a building, but instead kills two innocent children and destroys another life. Thirty years later, one of the bombers in sitting on death row, a former Klan activist, waiting to die when his unknown grandson appears as a lawyer in hopes to rescue him.

Grisham does another excellent job describing a story, with great mastery and fluidity, of one man's last ditch effort to save his grandfather from death. Even though his emphasis on law is profound, he delves into deeper issues such as family, the question of the death penalty, and other emotional issues that one does see in other Grisham novels (with the exception of A Painted House).

What's really fascinating is that nothing in this book is not black and white. For each issue he brings up, there are good and bad points - each issue is a gray area. He describes the horrors of death row, but then juxtaposes it with the deaths of the two youngsters. Instead of making the main character purely good or evil, he mixes it a bit. Sometimes you wish the inmate would fry, sometimes you feel he's innocent.

Another good point about the book is that it's not a farfetched story, like the Street Lawyer or the Firm, it's a book that could be confused with a documentary. He doesn't revolve action or plot twists, but instead relies on the psychological aspects of all sides of a death sentence.

The only bad point, of which Grisham tends to do a lot, is he is repetitive. Many, many parts were repeated over and over again. This 700-page book could have been reduced to 500-page book without any loss of detail. Pages 200 to 400 just dragged on and on and on. The last 150 pages, though nothing exciting happens, is really intense and emotional, and is what makes this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. It's a slight departure for Grisham, as he delves into more psychological elements, but it works well.

Grisham's "The Street Lawyer" won't keep you turning the pages with excitement like his earlier novels ("The Firm", "The Pelican Brief"). There's not a whole lot of suspense, fear, or emotion in this novel -- the main character has an epiphany that leads him to leave his high-paying, power law firm for a street clinic, helping out the homeless with their legal problems -- not the stuff of a thriller. To be sure, there's some contrived tension arising from some shady characters threatening physical violence and the hope that you're still reading The Firm. But the story mostly just unfolds and then gets resolved. At least the main character doesn't end up living in Aruba at the end of this story :-)

For true Grisham fans (and I'm one of them), it's a quick and easy read that you might as well add to your collection, but it won't leave you talking about it the next day like many of his other novels...

The book starts GREAT, as our narrator, an up-and-coming attorney in a high-powered DC firm, is taken hostage along with some co-workers, by a homeless man. The scene is tense and grabs your attention right away.

After the violent conclusion to his scenario, our hero begins to reasses his priorities, and quickly decides to abandon his firm and begin life as a "street lawyer." This involves filing for divorce, giving up a huge salary, filing suit against his former firm, stealing files, etc. etc. The protagonists life spins quickly out of control, but Grisham doesn't build much tension around these events. Even as we see his life coming apart, Grisham lays right down in front of us the different ways our hero will be able to bounce back again.

Grisham mostly uses the book to preach to the reader. No matter how you feel about the issues Grisham espouses, there is no denying that the QUANTITY of preaching slows the progress of the book.

Much like THE RUNAWAY JURY, Grisham fails to ever make us believe that our heros might fail in their quest. Grisham is a competent writer, nice and breezy, and when he isn't preaching, his prose zooms along. However, a bit more DRAMA is called for too!

Good page turner about an attorney who actually begins to see humanity's needs and acts on them. True Grisham style with few flowery phrases and a lot of quick stepping to keep the reader enthralled. I liked The Firm and Pelican Brief better, but this is a good read.

Also recommended: Silent Flight, Devoted Pursuit, a fast-paced story about two sisters searching for an aunt who disappeared into the maze of the homeless.

Sometimes Grisham manages to move beyond the thriller apsect to higher ground, as in "The Street Lawyer" or "The Testament." He didn't move above ground with "The Brethren," though. Judges in a minumum security prison? Completely believable. Running a money making scam from their cell? Why not? A presidential candidate hand-picked and financed by the CIA? Well, maybe not, but I did grow up during Vietnam and Watergate, so it wasn't *completely* outside the realm of possibility in my mind.

Putting all these plot elements together and expecting it to be realistic is pretty far-fetched, though. Realizing that Grisham's strength comes from taking the implausible and making it seem possible made "The Brethren" even more disappointing. The story of the three judges holding forth on an X-rated scam run from the federal prison kept me reading, as they were somewhat interesting and enjoyable characters to follow, even thought they may have lacked any depth. Trying to see how their story and the story of Aaron Lake would come together kept me going at first, though it was not that hard to see where it was headed after a few chapters. The rest of the book, I just coasted, not especially caring how it all would work out, because none of the main players created any feeling of sympathy or connection that resonated with me. Yes, I read it all the way to the end, but more to see if my prediction of the denouement matched Grisham's. He's done better. Here's to anticipating his new book, which is supposed to be a departure for him. I think he needs a break from the legal thrillers for a while!

The book is well written., looks like two story lines that are tied together extremely well. The two premises are very interesting. Three imprisoned judges pulling off for them what appears to be a safe blackmail scheme. And the CIA buying the Next predident of The USA. A book with no romance in it, and thank God. For this book is funny and easy to read. But it; you will not be sorry. Much better than his last couple.

In the beginning of this book, it was a little hard to locate the plot, but once I got past several pages, the plot was there, hard and heavy. Grisham writes in a style providing only what the reader needs and nothing more. Many characters are portrayed in this novel, but Grisham did a good job leading the way for the reader so they could connect properly with each character. I became anxious to see how his subplots would collide with the actual plot. As far as Spicer, he has no compassion, except for that of his wife. The other two judges portrayed their compassion with action, looking down, or away when bad news struck. Very good read. Believable characters, setting and plot. Grisham creates plausibility. I would have given him five stars for this book, but I was not satisfied with the ending. It just "trailed off" into never, never land. As an author, myself, I believe I have an obligation to provide satisfaction for my readers and I do so with Ragdoll, Song of the Cimarron and One With the Wind. I don't like an abrupt ending that leaves me hanging and wondering. Yet, for the most part, this is an excellent read. Compelling and written with the hand of an expert in fiction. I will read more by this author and I encourage others to do so as well. Kelly R. Stevens

Having been an avid reader of all of John Grisham's works (inlcuding the recent "Skipping Christmas", which I actually enjoyed and can fully picture as next years' made for TV or cable Christmas movie), I found "The Summons" to be the most disappointing yet.

The story show promise in the first 50 pages, leading up to Judge Atlee's death, Ray's discovery of a cashe of cash and the introduction of the cast of characters through the funeral arrangements and initiation of the probate process. The next 250 pages frankly drag to the point of exhaustion. As a small town lawyer myself, I would say that the "Summons" is the most realistic of all of Grisham's legal thrillers, as the law can be very dry and mundane, which is exactly what I found here.

As Grisham takes us through a potentially exhilirating quest on the source of the Judge's stash, we are presented with much possibility, only to be let down at the end. I found myself looking forward to a Grisham-esque explanation of everything near the end.

Instead, the payoff is not believable (even within the fictional boundaries of the book) and presents answers that involve information that Grisham usually buries somewhere in the story, even if only a sentence or two. In fairness, I figured out the "whodunnit" part with many pages to go, put the howdunnit and whydunnit explanations were a bit weak.

I think this is what happens when you are under contract to crank out a number of books of a certain genre for a publisher. This effort seemed forced to me and I was left with a bad taste in my mouth at the end.

I hope that Mr. Grisham is once again inspired in his next thriller, since I do enjoy his best efforts.

Kept reading to get to the exciting part and then it was over...flat story.

I was anxiously awaiting this novel, having been teased by the hype of "pre-order yours now". I got this book on a Sunday afternoon at 3pm and was finiahed by 10pm. My experience was an interesting one, having been drawn in by Grisham's good scene setting in Charlottesville, Va and various locations in Mississippi and believable characters. Ray Atlee, a law professor at the University of Va, is a likable character and we can also understand his dread at being summoned by his dying, hardnosed judge-father to discuss his estate. His no-good brother Forrest, an alcoholic and drug addict who has never been clean for more than 6 months is a believable and sad character. When money is unexpectedly found at the father's house, along with his father's dead body, a chase begins with Ray trying to outrun whoever knows he took the money.

In my analyses of the plot development, I think there is too much time moving the money and watching the money and repetitive break-ins and near misses with finding the bad guys. Ray does find out where the money came from and that is interesting...The ending comes all at once and could have been developed in a more satisfying way.

The point is that I was interested enough to want to find out what happened and I was entertained along the way. This would make a pleasant airport read. I did not read any of the reviews here before I read the book--if I had I probably wouldn't have read it and that would have been too bad.

I have read all of the Grisham novels with the exception of the Painted House and the Christmas novel. I have been a little disappointed with his last few books like the Brethren. I do admit my preference for his novels like the Firm and Pelican Brief...

Just be aware that as he progresses as a writer, Grisham is deviating from his earlier successes with tightly plotted legal thrillers. This is more of a suspenseful story that takes place in the South.