I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a book snob. Or at least, I pretend to be one. A novel by Grisham would never make it onto my TBR list on its own.

However, my mom gave me this book. My mom is an attorney, and she and I have a long-standing relationship based on guilt and fear, and so I felt obligated to read it.

I couldn’t help it – I became engrossed in this book as I’m sure most Grisham fans do. He doesn’t sell millions of books for nothin’. His characters are vivid, the legal drama intriguing, and each page is infused with colorful depictions of the surroundings, the legal proceedings and the characters themselves. Some of the action is over the top and ridiculous, but some of it hits home.

The Litigators tells the story of David Zinc, a drone attorney at a huge firm who has a mental breakdown, walks out on his job, and after an afternoon of getting stone cold wasted, somehow ends up at “boutique” law firm Finley & Figg, vomiting on their front steps. This turns into an employment opportunity at the ambulance-chasing firm. The three attorneys get themselves in over their heads in a lawsuit against a big drug company, which is the crux of the novel. None of them have trial experience, yet suddenly, they’re up against the hotshots from David’s old firm. Outnumbered and with the facts stacked against them, they must figure out how to survive the brutal “Rocket Docket” judge and the female lead attorney on the other side. Meanwhile, the fees are adding up, and without the guarantee of a huge payout from the drug lawsuit, the future of the small firm is in jeopardy.

What I like about this story is that it doesn’t end the way I was thinking it might, which is, with a nice neat little bow tied around it, with all loose ends tied up. Sometimes, the good guys lose. But what do they do after that?

While I still won’t go out of my way to read a Grisham novel, I won’t turn my nose up at it the next time my mom offers one to me.