The Testament

The Testament is a novel by the American writer John Grisham, published in hardcover by Doubleday on 2 February 1999.

Troy Phelan is an eccentric billionaire who has rewritten his will many times, and the last version he signs, hours before he falls to his death, leaves his fortune to an illegitimate daughter, Rachel Lane, and cuts out the six children of his three marriages. The children had been expecting the estate, and their lawyers contest what they call an unsound will, which leaves the firm handling the estate with a task it did not choose: find Rachel Lane and tell her. She is living in the interior of Brazil as a missionary and shows no interest in the money, and the lawyer sent after her, Nate O'Riley, is a litigation specialist whose drinking has brought his career to an end. The novel follows his journey towards her and the legal war being fought at the same time in Virginia.

Grisham's legal novels usually end in a courtroom, and this one spends most of its length in the Pantanal, written as an adventure story as much as a legal one.