The Appeal; by John Grisham.

The only book that was so hard core realist, I felt awful after finishing reading it - not until then, of course.

Not because the book was not good, it is as wonderful as all Grisham's work, but because when one reads a story rather than a reportage one would like to leave with a hope, of a possible solution and of a coming out of darkness.

For grim endings there is always reality, novels and films are the last places one looks for those.

Especially in the work of a writer that is known for a fighting spirit and a positive hope of escaping the morass, not for a Devdas-like diving down into mire of sad endings.

Nevertheless, there is an excellent reason for ending the book this way with reality - that is, to wake up the readers and the general population to the reality out there, from the usual stupor of a trust in the system they believe will ultimately take care of them.

The system can only be as good as the participants make it, and a population that is unaware of what and how much can and does go wrong, on various levels in their very midst, is easy to capture and enslave.

Grisham must again be thanked for the effort to wake up a sleeping population towards reality of their own nation.