Summary

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer’s career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track – until the recession hits and she is downsized, furloughed, and escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, all for a slim chance of getting rehired.

In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about. Samantha’s new job takes her into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack. But some of the locals aren’t so thrilled to have a big-city lawyer in town, and within weeks Samantha is engulfed in litigation that turns deadly. Because like most small towns, Brady harbors big secrets that some will kill to conceal.

Why I chose to read this book
I read The Firm by John Grisham when I was a teenager and I’ve been fascinated by his legal thrillers ever since. So when I came upon Gray Mountain at the bookstore, it was a no-brainer for me to pick it up and buy it. Funny story, I once toyed with the idea of becoming a lawyer or a paralegal, but after reading a few of Grisham’s books, I got discouraged by the number of weekly hours lawyers put in, leaving no room for a life outside of work. That’s not the kind of life I envisioned for myself!

Thoughts & Opinions
If you’ve read any of Grisham’s books, you know that he specializes in legal thrillers in small-town settings and this one is no different. So in that sense, it’s a classic Grisham book. What I appreciated about this story, in particular, is that contrary to most of his novels, the main character in this book is a woman. What I appreciated, even more, is that she isn’t described stereotypically, which most male authors often do when writing about female characters. The story itself is rather interesting; it touches on the financial crisis of 2008 and how it affected those working on Wall Street. However, the main topic is even more fascinating and it’s something I had never even heard about before reading this book; strip mining and surface mining. I learned so much about the devastating effects this has on the Appalachian Mountains and its surrounding areas and wish this was a topic more people talked about because there are great injustices involved in these practices.