Summary of John Grisham's Gray Mountain is a legal thriller by John Grisham that is set during the recession of 2008. The book begins when associate lawyer, Samantha Kofer, is furloughed, or laid off, due to the recession, from a New York City law firm. Samantha is hired by Mattie Wyatt, a lawyer and the executive director of the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic in Brady, Virginia, as a volunteer at the clinic.

Samantha meets Mattie’s nephew, Donovan Gray, a trial lawyer in Brady. Donovan has built a reputation suing the local coal companies, something that has earned him a lot of enemies because of the power the coal companies wield in the area. However, the coal companies have created a dangerous environment in the area by using a process known as mountaintop removal, a type of strip mining that damages the environment and allows toxic slurry to spill into the ground water…