Is John Grisham burning himself out by writing too many books of late?? That’s the feeling I got when I read ’’The Broker’’.. I had firmly decided not to buy any grisham books after his previous disaster ’’last juror’’.. but , being an avid reader and living in over crowded bangalore , I didn’t have much to do and hence decided on this book
Frankly, I found this book to be very decent when u compare to his ’’last juror’’, but all of us long for old grisham books like Firm or client or partner.. he terribly disappoints in this aspect.
I have a feeling that John grisham sometimes gets carried away by a particular geographic location and tries to spin a yarn around that particular place.. ( he had written in detail about the marshlands in one of his books.. ’’summons’’ I guess) and here he gets carried away by Bologna in Italy.
Here is a wonderful plot, a suspense writer’s dream plot.. a powerful washington broker released in a last minute pardon by an outgoing president at the persuasion of the CIA chief to find out which international intelligence agencies would kill him so that the mystery about an all powerful satellite is unearthed..But what does john grisham do?? he goes around wasting time on how Backman learns italy ( too many pages wasted on this) and how he enjoys the beautiful city of Bologna...
Give this plot to an author like Fredrick Forsyth, and he would have made a killing out of it..
The truth is Grisham is not a story teller who deals with international espionage, spies, mossad etc.. his forte is law, lawyers and his subtle and ingenious style of circumventing american law.. he has ventured into a little bit unknown zone, but to be fair to him , he has tried to sustain reader’s interests and succeeds to a certain extent.
The start and the end is good, the middle portions plummet to new lows..
Well, if he had given another failure like ’’last juror’’ , I would have never ventured near grisham in future.. but thankfully, he exhibits shades of ’’old grisham’’ which gives readers like me hope that he would come out with books which live up to reputation as a master story teller.