The Runaway Jury

A couple of years back, I had the habit of buying a book every month. With time, the habit went down the drain, but reading has not. I read a min of two books every month and am somewhat proud to say that whatever linguistic skills I have acquired, are the result of my reading habits. Before I started blogging, I would finish reading a book and would jolt down my impressions in my diary. These days, I publish my notes in my blog. Yes, its my blog. I am free to write about anything that comes to my mind.

Till date, I haven't read many hard cover books. My choice has always been the paperbacks. A paperback can  be a great diversion from life, and this has always proved true where I am concerned. 'The Runaway Jury' by Grisham was one of the bestsellers and if my knowledge is correct, the story was adopted to make a movie.

The plot unwinds: A jury is selected in Mississippi to hear the case of a widow whose husband died of lung cancer. On this jury are all manner of average citizens, except that one juror, Nicholas, a law school dropout, has managed to penetrate county records, get a fictitious name added to the jury roll, and then have that non-person be selected to hear the case. The tobacco industry goes to great lengths to influence the jury, even outright bribing a few jurors. There's no dramatic cross-examination; no heart wrenching testimony. 

For once, lawyers play a small role in Grisham's tale. Instead, the focus is on Rankin Fitch and his nemesis, Marlee, who also happens to be Nicholas' girlfriend. Marlee and Nicholas have hatched a plot to get even with the tobacco industry. Fitch is the guy behind the scenes, a master manipulator with unlimited funds from Big Tobacco, and he will do anything to win. He is not one of the lawyers, but this is his eighth tobacco trial and he has never lost. 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.

I am not going to give away the rest of the story. Grab a copy and read for yourselves. You wouldn't regret it.

The book best illustrates jury tampering,  the conduct of a jury which cannot follow instructions and the obsession of the tobacco companies to stay rich. At times, we get the feeling that those who head the tobacco companies would prefer death than to accept a defeat in the trial.

I have no practical experience with a Jury.  Jury tampering in the form of purchased votes as Grisham illustrates here is perhaps only one. A less prominent theme in 'The Runaway Jury', but one which nonetheless plays a major role in any big trial is the influence of the media; a community saturated by one-sided publicity about a trial is unlikely to yield a fair and impartial Jury. Additionally, the conduct of the attorneys can be a factor in influencing a jury's verdict. (The Jury system is not practice in India, and my knowledge on the system comes out of reading.)

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 love and like to think.