Duncan Williamson: Book Review The Broker gri4.html

John Grisham

This is by far the worst John Grisham book that I have read.

The story line is the same good quality Grisham but I got the impression that he wrote this whilst distracted.

The plot surrounds Joel, a former lawyer and The Broker in the title, who has ended up in prison as a result of a major problem. Suddenly, 14 years early, he receives a full pardon from the outgoing President of the USA and is released. As part of the deal, Joel has to go to another part of the world and live incognito.

They decide to take him to Italy and give him an Italian persona. So he learns Italian: this is a good part of the book for anyone just starting to study Italian, by the way, as there are lots of Italian phrases to learn. Andiamo!

There are some characters of note but not as effective as previous Grishams. There are a couple of twists as the plot develops; but nowhere near as good as previous Grishams.

We are carried along with an old time lawyer, though, so we should expect that he will revert to type at some stage. Well, he can't really do that given that he is without money, without passport, without friends. So he becomes creative and that side is OK. As Grisham says at the end of the book, though, he's not an expert in these matters ... and it shows.

Francesca is the mystery element and of course, there is scope for a follow up novel with that one. She is, by turns, a miserable cow and a compassionate woman whose husband is in the closing stages of a battle against cancer.

There is a reason why Joel has been pardoned and there are several strands to it: these are relatively complicated and it would spoil the book if I revealed too much. That Joel escapes from some highly trained operatives even when cornered is one of the things that Dan Brown builds into his stories and they are as incredible with Grisham as they are with Brown: they are incredible. Without it, Joel would have died before the story got interesting, however!

Sticking with the Dan Brown analogy, I wonder if it's an accident that Grisham has set this story in Italy and takes us on a grand tour of Bologna, where much of the story is set. The book is certainly an excellent advertisement for Bologna and I can imagine a trail of Broker chaser making their way there over the next year or so as sales of this book take off. Good for Bologna and good for Italy.

Back to the story, Joel manages to give his pursuers the slip several times and the book ends on a high note for one of the two major sets of characters. It really would ruin the story if I said which one was the winner although I have given a clue already!

What is really wrong with this book is that it drags on and on: there aren't enough interesting things happening as Joel's attempts at escaping from his new persona begin. Joel isn't a sifficiently interesting character either to carry the plot alone and neither is the softening of his Fracensca!

The result is that it isn't until around three quarters of the way through the book that the story comes to life.

I was also puzzled as to where Joel got all of his money from as he set of on his excaplogy act. He got some money from his son as part of a clever bit of stroy development but that was stolen along with the bag that contained his money and has palm top computer or whatever it was. Maybe I missed the slipping into a wallet of a wad!

Apart from the Italian phrases and the Bologna travelogue, I wouldn't bother with this one I'm afraid. Sorry Grishy!

2 August 2005