"" Writer's Wanderings: Books for the Road--The Associate

Monday, June 08, 2009

Books for the Road--The Associate


Last week I drove fourteen hours round trip to Wheaton, IL, and took advantage of the time spent in the car to "read" The Associate by John Grisham. The audio book was nine discs--11 hours of listening to Erik Singer, the reader. He does a great job.

The story is about a new associate in a huge law firm, Kyle McAvoy, who follows a career course radically different from what he had planned when a video of a frat party with a rape scene in it surfaces and he is blackmailed into "legal" espionage involving a huge lawsuit between two companies vying for a government contract.

This is a return to the legal stories Grisham writes well but I don't know that I would call it a thriller. The story tends to bog down in the details and the plot develops very slowly. Still, I listened on. I am a Grisham fan. I thought perhaps it was because I was listening to the audio rather than reading it that made it less exciting but when I returned home and checked reviews, I found that many others felt it was not his best work as well.

So, if you like Grisham, you will like this just for his storytelling and delving into the world of the high end, large firm lawyer. If you're not a fan, pick up one of his other books, like The Firm, or King of Torts. They were much more exciting.

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