Status
Call number
Genres
Publication
Description
Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER �?� In a plush Virginia office, a rich, angry old man is furiously rewriting his will. With his death just hours away, Troy Phelan wants to send a message to his children, his ex-wives, and his minions�??a message that will touch off a vicious legal battle and transform dozens of lives. Because Troy Phelan�??s new will names a sole surprise heir to his eleven-billion-dollar fortune: a mysterious woman named Rachel Lane, a missionary living deep in the jungles of Brazil. Enter the lawyers. Nate O�??Riley is fresh out of rehab, a disgraced corporate attorney handpicked for his last job: to find Rachel Lane at any cost. As Phelan�??s family circles like vultures in D.C., Nate goes crashing through the Brazilian jungle, entering a world where money means nothing, where death is just one misstep away, and where a woman�??pursued by enemies and friends alike�??holds a stunning surp… (more)
User reviews
A self-made
He does pay off all his children's debt and leaves the remainder of his holdings to his illegitimate daughter no one knew he had. Nor does anyone know where she is. His law firm sends a drug/alcohol addict just out of rehab for the fourth time to find her. He finds her an M.D. who has dedicated her life to God and is working deep in the jungles of Brazil.
I found the book a very fast read that has some plot twist and is well written. Well worth the read.
I thought this was really good. Boy, that family was hateful! We didn’t really get to know Troy, and apparently he wasn’t likeable, either, but you could sure see why he wanted to cut those ungrateful offspring (and ex-wives) out of the will altogether! Much of the novel was Nate trying to find Rachel in Brazil, which was entertaining, which leads me to mention that here were a number of humourous moments in the book, as well, which was kind of fun.
It happens that I am Brazilian and when I read American novelists and by chance the story has passages held in Brazil or has references to our uses and costumes I always get annoyed.
John Grisham is not an exception.
His book "The
The city of Corumbá, where was taken most of the hints used by Grisham, was not even included between the 200 biggest Brazilian cities. At that time 213 cities had more than 100.000 inhabitants and Corumbá counted around 95.000 in its urban area.
The first thing an author has to have in mind before issue a concept about the country and its people is that Brazil is a huge country, more than 8 million squares kilometers wide, where lives more than 170 million inhabitants and where the diversity of culture, costumes, habits and facilities are tremendous.
Anyone that judges the country based on experience in one single location will fall into plain misled.
That is what happened with the character Nate O'Riley of "The Testament" which issued his opinions about Brazil by his acquaintances in the small city of Corumbá in the banks of river Paraguai.
Starting in page 89 (Island Books - Dell Publishing 2000) Nate ask to his boss "So they have phones in Brazil" In this episode there is a chance, by the comment of his fellow character Josh, that Grisham wants to point out the ignorance of the entire American people about Brazil using the ignorance of his character Nate as sample. The same applies for the estrange thinking of Nate when he boards the plane to Corumbá at page 98. Not considering this idea the thinking is offensive.
It is amazing that a writer which also happens to be a law man makes, on page 102, such simplifying explanation about the Brazilian practician law system. It is not true that courtrooms were not a integral part of practician law in Brazil. The difference in relation of the American style litigation is that only homicides crimes held a jury. In civil and other types of offenses the courtroom actors are limited to the judge, lawyers, parties and testimonies and no popular jury is involved. So trials are not rare, they just don't apply for crimes other than homicide. Like commons Americans Grisham is only aware of the American style, the rest of the world is simple the rest of the world.
Brazilian knows the problems of their public hospitals and are working to improve the system but in inconceivable that the wealthy character Nate have to be conducted (pg.333) to a nasty public hospital in a small town instead of private one just to say a lot of imprecations to be generalize to all hospitals in Brazil forgetting that, besides the problems, Brazil has modern hospital facilities, some even publics, and a advanced research medicine with top awards in genetics, cardiology, plastic surgeon, and AIDS therapy. An American doctor, cogitated, by the author, to be transported from 3.000 miles away would not treat better a patient with Dengue than an experiment Brazilian specialist in tropical diseases.
The page 335 statement of "a tide of the finest American-made chemicals" given to Nate is a falsehood. No Brazilian hospitals uses American-made chemicals as a routine.
At page 376 we found the worst concept about Brazil made by Mr. Grisham. Is a complete misunderstanding of our culture.
We inherit from our Portuguese's, colonizers, what we call in Portuguese "estamento político." In this context is the bureaucracy which included what is usually known as "despachantes"
Since the 70's all the successive governments worked to exclude or at least reduce in our society the bureaucracy monster. The results in those 30 years have been enormous. Today, although reminiscent in interior land and small towns, Brazilians can get important documents trough the Internet automatically. This includes annual IRS declaration since 1996. So, "despachantes" are not a much used figure in big cities except by old class citizens, still aggregated to the past. I don't want to say that the Brazilian bureaucracy is already a wonder but is improving each year.
Besides that, the text of Mr. Grisham is full of mistakes. "Despachantes" were never used for voting. The voting system in Brazil designed and built by Brazilians firms is the most modern in the world where every 100 millions assigned electors in the 2002 election voted in a computerized system trough a electronic ballot and the final results where officially published 24 hours later. Compare this performance with the last American presidential election. Observers all over the world came to the country to study our voting system.
Is it believable that a country with such a technology capacity, with a aeronautical industry competing and exporting for many countries which includes United States and Canada could be depicted as a bunch of Indians aside their huts?
The affirmative at top of page 377 stating that a American passport was issued for Nate for US$ 2.000 trough the services of a "despachante" is outrageous. First because no American passport can be issued by a Brazilian Government Agency. If some "despachante" was used, was an American "despachante" for the American Consulate services. Second, because a Brazilian passport can be issued without "long lines" for less than US$ 20.
Is not forbidden to an author to write the realities about a country but a best-seller author must have compromise with the absolute truth and not create wrong general impressions.
Concluding this comment, I still recommend the book as a good novel with a smart plot showing aspect of courtrooms, legal conferences, judges chambers and exotic wild places of Brazil but I do not recommend it for Brazilian readers. Most of them will get annoyed like me with Grisham's misleads
I got this book from the book club. I've read just about all of John Grisham's novels, but for some reason I missed this one. I'm certainly glad I didn't, because I thought The Testament was close to being one of his best. I really enjoyed "The
If I have one nit to pick, it's that Grisham again introduces an event that makes no narrative sense, that seems to exist only as a contrivance to add a bit of mystery to the proceedings. Since he did something similar in _The Partner_, I'm wondering if this is a common problem in his books. What am I talking about? See below.
********* SPOILER WARNING! **************
When Rachel goes to Corumba and visits Nate in the hospital, he's not sure if he actually saw her or was just dreaming. He and Jevy search everywhere, but find no trace of her; Jevy, with his contacts and local knowledge, is finally convinced that Rachel has not entered the town.
But we learn that Rachel *was* in Corumba! And so we're forced to conclude that she snuck into town, carefully avoiding contact with any of the locals who could identify her. Why? There's no reason for such behavior in the story – it only exists as a plot device for the author to keep Nate – and his readers – guessing until the end.
This is my first Grisham read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Lawyer - hates job, drink & drugs ruined his and family life.
Troy Phelan, a 78-year-old fabulously wealthy eccentric is sick of living and tired of his money-grubbing relatives who can’t wait for him to die so they can
The reading of the will tears everything loose. Lawyers begin to belly up to the trough, knowing that whatever the outcome of the will’s inevitable challenge — even though the will had specifically completely disinherited anyone in the family who challenged its provisions — they will benefit handsomely. The first item of business was to hire a PR firm to present the children as loving heirs cut out of their rightful inheritance by a demented man. As one lawyer (Grisham must really hate lawyers and PR people, they come across as such miserable people) noted, PR firms, i.e. professional liars don’t come cheap — he was charging $600 per hour and $400 per hour for his “useless” accompanying staff.
They also hired a new batch of psychiatrists — after having fired the first group, they had to get some who could now overrule the original finding of sanity. They found one quickly in the classified section of a magazine for trial lawyers.
A boozy lawyer agrees to search the Amazon Basin for the lost woman. A very good read