The Associate » (Reprint)

The master of the legal thriller, John Grisham was a criminal and civil lawyer in Mississippi when his first book, A Time to Kill, was published. But it was his next book, The Firm, that became a blockbuster and established him as king of the genre.

Kyle McAvoy possesses an outstanding legal mind. Good-looking and affable, he has a glittering future. He also has a dark secret that could destroy his dreams, his career, even his life. One night that secret catches up with him. The men who accost Kyle have a compromising video they’ll use to ruin him–unless he does exactly what they say. What they offer Kyle is something any ambitious young lawyer would kill for: a job in Manhattan as an associate at the world’s largest law firm. If Kyle accepts, he’ll be on the fast track to partnership and a fortune. But there’s a catch. Kyle won’t be working for the firm but against it in a dispute between two powerful defense contractors worth billions. Now Kyle is caught between the criminal forces manipulating him, the FBI, and his own law firm–in a malignant conspiracy not even Kyle with all his intellect, cunning, and bravery may be able to escape alive.

The Barnes & Noble Review

You might think that John Grisham's 22nd book, The Associate, has little chance of being any good. According to its jacket copy, it's practically a rewrite of his 1991 blockbuster, The Firm. Time magazine cheerfully dismissed it as "John Grisham's Charming Novel About Nothing." And the book's hand-wringing about the outrageous excesses of fancy Wall Street law firms seems, in this winter of our hardship, so suddenly last summer.

You might think all these things, but you would be wrong.