76. The Associate - John Grisham

My first John Grisham novel! ... though to be honest, I was only mildly impressed.

This book (legal thriller #20 for Grisham) is about Kyle McAvoy, an impressive Yale law student whose dreams of working a public service job after law school are forced to change when shadowy figures emerge and start blackmailing him with a videotape that revives a five-year-old rape accusation. Kyle does as his blackmailers tell him, and accepts a job at a huge Wall Street firm that represents a military contractor involved in a hefty lawsuit. That client is the blackmailers' reason for blackmailing Kyle: as long as he feeds them information about the $800 billion case, then they won't expose his past.

Honestly ... it's a decent story, but I thought it would be more of an intellectual legal thriller. It was really more of a simple story which happened to take place at a law firm. And it could have easily been told in way less than 400 pages! I think the middle hundred or so pages could be shortened dramatically. Some parts were quite unbelievable, like this part explaining Kyle's experiences growing up with his dad, an attorney:

"Every lawyer and every judge in York knew Kyle, and it was not unusual for him to slip into an empty courtroom, present a motion to a judge, argue its merits if necessary, then leave with a signed order."

A high school student?? Really?! However, there were other parts that I could totally relate to and smile about, like when Kyle was studying for the bar exam, and this part about billing:

"It took an hour to read every word in the file. One point two hours to be exact, and suddenly he had no reluctance in billing Placid for 1.2 hours, or $360 for the review. Not long ago, say about ninety minutes, he found it hard to believe he was worth $300 an hour. He hadn't even passed the bar! Now, though, he had been converted."

Despite my critiques, I'll definitely be willing to check out the movie when it comes out in 2010 (yes - Grisham must have movie rights lined up while he's still writing!) - and I'm willing to read some more Grisham novels. He's got enough to choose from!

Oh - and many thanks to my buddy Cole for giving me this book to add to my library!! :)