The Broker - John Grisham

The Plot ----------- Disgraced former lawyer Joel Backman is freed from prison and forced to flee to Italy. Meanwhile sinister agencies, aware of his release, are trying to locate and assassinate him. In recent years, John Grisham has increasingly moved away from the areas he is most familiar with (the courtroom and the American Deep South) in search of new storylines. Whenever he does, these tend to be his weakest books (A Painted House and Bleachers being a case in point). Sadly, The Broker does nothing to suggest this pattern is going to be broken any time soon. Although it’s not as bad as some of Grisham’s other novels, The Broker does ...  Read the complete review

John Grisham is an author that you just can't ignore. His many novels are ubiquitous and are common sights at bookstores in particular at airports and train stations. Grisham's speciality, helped by the fact he used to be a lawyer, is fiction that involves attorneys, courtrooms and government activity. This novel is no different and involves an elaborate spy plot, one involving greedy lawyers and the CIA, that has global implications. Joel Backman is the hero or anti-hero of the novel, depending on whether you can forgive his behaviour and inherent arrogrance. He is a mature broker from Washington who has made a deal to sell spy sattelite controlling software ...  Read the complete review

Its strange, given my love for the genre, that I have never came across John Grisham's work. I am not a complete stranger to the name, seeing as half a dozen of his novels have been turned into fairly questionable films. On holiday this year though, I picked up this book from the hotel library. It was about the only book that didn't come from the Jackie Collins school of romance fiction. Was I pleased with my choice? Having been given a pardon by the outgoing president, Joel Backman is freed from prison six years after he was convicted of trying to sell a program that compromised government secrets. Packed off to Italy, he is given an entirely new ...  Read the complete review

Imagine if you were put in a position where you know that pleading guilty to an offence that you did not commit and signing up to twenty years of jail is going to keep you safer and happier than remaining at large in the real world. This is the life of Joel Backman, a once powerful broker, who people believe has obtained secrets that could compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system, JAM. Backman is surprised when he is visited in jail and is informed that the outgoing President intends to grant him a pardon for the crime he has plead guilty to. Backman is suspicious of this development, but when he is put on the spot to make a ...  Read the complete review

In the Author's Note there is the following disclaimer: "It's all fiction.. I know very little about spies, electronic surveillance, satellite phones, smartphones, bugs... If something in this novel approaches accuracy, it's probably a mistake" and also: "Im more terrified of high-tech electronic gadgets today than a year ago". Reading this makes me ask my self, Why then did you write this book? Well further in the Note, we find that it was his love for Bologna (The city that the plot is centered in) is what he really did research and came to love. That is why instead of legal thriller.. we have now ended up with.. an Italian Guide Book with a dash of ...  Read the complete review