The Associate

It has been a long time since I read a John Grisham novel. I used to be a huge fan of his, and read all his earlier novels obsessively.

However, in between my interest started to flag after I read his football books. I think legal thrillers are his forte and he should stick to it. Anyway, I soon moved on to other authors and genres. I even stopped noticing when his novels were getting published.

However, while browsing books at Eloor Library, I chanced upon The Associate and for lack of anything more inspiring to read, decided to pick it up.

I started reading and even before I knew it, I was hooked on, and enjoying the read.

The Associate is very similar in style to The Firm, and in fact it is very hard to review it without comparing it to The Firm. The protagonist is Kyle McAvoy, a likable and talented law student at Yale who gets blackmailed into doing some corporate espionage in the firm he is joining. The rest of the story deals with how he manages to get away from his blackmailers and turn the tables on them without doing any fraud.

This is typical John Grisham stuff. But, it is very well done. The story moves rapidly and I was left breathless by the various twists and turns. The ending leaves a lot of loose ends open, which disappointed me a little bit. It is very obvious that there is another spy who is working within Kyle’s organization, and although some hints are provided as to who it could be, nothing is revealed. The bad guys also get away in the end, which leaves Kyle in fear of his life.

I would like a sequel to this novel, to clear up all these loose ends. Or, the book could easily have continued for another 30-50 odd pages and tied all these loose ends neatly.

However, that is the only negative thing I could find about the book. All in all, it was a great and quick read, and a good break from more serious reading.