Henry Mathews is a young associate at a prestigious Chicago law firm with a high powered partner as his patron. His drop dead gorgeous girlfriend Elaine is on an equally fast track at her brokerage firm. Together, they seem to be the prototypical unstoppable power couple with everything within their grasp. Suddenly an apparently minor detour appears in Henry's path; he is notified that Tyler Crandall, the richest man in his tiny hometown of Council Grove, Kansas has died and Henry feels dutybound to return to unseal and execute THE WILL. It had been prepared by Henry's father shortly before he and Henry's mother were killed in a tragic automoblie accident several years earlier; its contents have remained unknown to everyone except Ty Crandall and Henry's father until this moment. When Crandall's family (as well as the residents of the town and several powerfully and poitically connected Kansans) learn that the estate was left primarily to a local resident nicknamed The Birdman (Raymond Boyd), chaos erupts! Ty's son Roger wants to challenge the will, but can only do so at great potential cost to both his mother and himself. Henry is forced to confront his feeling about his father's relatively unsuccessful career and his loss of faith resulting from the accident. (Upon the death of his parents, Henry had immediately left the seminary where he had been studying.) He can still recall his fear of and fascination with The Birdman during his childhood days in Council Grove. Now he quickly has to determine if he should attempt to enforce the provisions of a will that makes a multimillionaire of an apparently crazy man who has spent most of his life in the town park with a huge bird as his only companion and who had no known contact with Crandall. (I found Raymond Boyd to be a wonderfully drawn character, the gradual insights provided into his seemingly mad ravings with spiritual overtones were very well handled.)
There are an several intertwined threads to the story; a full description would both be beyond the scope of this review and also impossible without spoilers. The reader is soon introduced to Amanda Ashton, whose efforts to convince the Kansas legislature that she should be allowed to investigate the environmental hazards which old oil wells pose to local groundwater has raised the ire of Carl Durand, a powerful state senator with ties to Crandall and his son Roger. How their lives all intersect become one of the major threads in this novel. Finally, as Henry attempts to balance his time in Council Grove with his job in Chicago, a crisis erupts which forces him to reexamine his goals in order to avoid his own potential "moral deconstruction". The latter part of this book gradually uncovers the mystery that has lain hidden below the surface of Council Grove for decades and caused the mental anguish of Raymond Boyd. It is about how the cancer of lies can kill souls and destroy lives, and major segments of the book involve Henry wrestling with the deep spirtual emptiness that followed his rejection of a role for God in his life following his parents' death. The author handles this element incredibly well and I believe that it is essential to the storyline and enhances the narrative, but it certainly separates this from the usual action thriller.
This is a powerful story of how Henry's attempt to find redemption and perhaps even salvation for Raymond leads to new insights into his own life as well. There are some characters here who are as complex as the story itself; the reader comes to appreciate their struggles to overcome the roadblocks put in their way and the costly mistakes which they have made. My only minor criticism/caution is that while the action is almost continuous and often compelling, there are so many elements to this tale that it takes quite a while for them all to coalesce. Although this book is very differnt in plot construction than THE LAST GOODBYE. I found it every bit as enjoyable. The philosophical discussion of the characters' lives and the role of their ethical choices was an integral element in the richness of both stories; the major difference was the central role which the element of spirituality played in this book.
Tucker Andersen
What lengths would someone go to bury a secret? What lengths would someone go to uncover one?
Henry Mathews, a young, ambitious associate at one of the top law firms in Chicago, is a man on the move. As lethal in a courtroom as a shark in an aquarium, he is rising fast. But his hard-driving mentor, the senior partner, is obsessed with a telling inconsistency on Henry's otherwise brilliant résumé: the year after he graduated from college, Henry enrolled at a seminary in Kentucky. Even more perplexing, Henry left suddenly three weeks before the end of the first year, and won't speak of the episode.
But Henry's past refuses to go away. Called back to his tiny hometown in Council Grove, Kansas, to execute the will of Tyler Crandall, the town's richest man, Henry gets enmeshed in a web of long-hidden secrets. Tyler has chosen not to leave his wealth to his grasping son, but instead has made a homeless derelict called the Birdman a sudden millionaire and Council Grove's most powerful resident.
The Birdman, scripture-spouting and delusional, prophesies a dark vision of retribution and hellfire. But soon it becomes clear that locked behind his madness is the key to the real history of Council Grove. When a grotesque and cruel act convinces Henry that powerful forces will do anything to keep those secrets hidden, he determines to protect the Birdman and uncover the truth. But the cost is high: Henry is in danger of losing both his job in Chicago and his beautiful, ambitious girlfriend.
Henry, given the opportunity to use his phenomenal legal skills for good, discovers that right and wrong are more complex than he imagined. Sucked into secrets of money, politics, and a tragic love affair -- secrets with the power to ruin lives -- Henry finds his own sense of morality under assault. As black and white turn to gray, what began as a legal battle becomes a spiritual journey stretching back to Henry's mysterious experience at the seminary.
More than just a legal thriller, The Will is an absorbing, deeply satisfying read.