The Broker » (Abridged)

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.

In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

Still, it's true that what Grisham knows best is the law, and his novels are most plausible when they show lawyers at work, scheming and conniving and cheating and conspiring and, every once in a while, trying to do what's fair and right. I had a very good time with The Broker, found Backman believable and charming and interesting, got a few laughs and felt my pulse thumping as the climax approached.