Summary Of The Book Sycamore Row picks up three years after the trial of Carl Lee Hailey, where A Time to Kill left off. Mr. Seth Hubbard instructs one of his employees to meet him by a Sycamore tree on a Sunday afternoon. Upon arriving at the location, the employee finds his boss dead, hanging by a noose from the branch of the Sycamore tree. Mr. Hubbard decided to end his life because his terminal lung cancer was too painful to cope with. He did, however, leave a very specific set of instructions for his funeral and subsequent burial.
Meanwhile, Jake Brigance is caught up trying to get insurance for his burned down house. His new secretary informs him that a letter from Mr. Seth Hubbard has arrived for him. It is a revised holographic will that renounces his previous one, wherein all his money was to go to his children and grandchildren. In this revised will, Hubbard wishes to leave the bulk of his money to his housekeeper, Letitia Lang, a little to the church and some for his brother. He asserts that his bullheaded children will fight the contents of the will, and Jake is entrusted the responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen.
A convoluted trail follows thereafter, just as Mr. Hubbard had forewarned. The story proceeds in a fast-paced manner, delving into the details of a fiercely controversial trial. Another exemplary legal thriller by John Grisham, Sycamore Row is a page-turner.
About John Grisham John Grisham, born in 1955, is an American lawyer, author and politician. He has authored The Racketeer, The Street Lawyer, The Pelican Brief, The Runaway Jury, The King of Torts and The Chamber.
Born in Arkansas, Grisham’s family relocated to DeSoto County in Mississippi, when he was four years old. He studied at Delta State University in Cleveland, Northwest Mississippi Community College in Mississippi, Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi School of Law, where he procured a degree in law. His first ever book, A Time To Kill, was hailed as the bestselling novel of 1991. He received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award in 2005 as well. He is married to Renee Jones, and the couple have two children.
Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Realizing he didn't have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became the bestselling novel of 1991. Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his books' protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500--the biggest verdict of his career. When he's not writing, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.