The Firm - John Grisham

Book jacket synopsis:

At the top of his class at Harvard Law, he had his choice of the best in America.    He made a deadly mistake.

When Mitch McDeere signed on with Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought he and his beautiful wife, Abby, were on their way.  The firm leased him a BMW, paid off his school loans, arranged a mortgage, and hired him a decorator.  Mitch McDeere should have remembered what his brother Ray – doing fifteen years in a Tennessee jail – already knew.  You never get nothing for nothing.  Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch’s firm and needs his help.  Mitch is caught between a rock and a hard place, with no choice – if he wants to live.

It’s been around for a while and has always been quite popular.  It made a rich man out of John Grisham, I’m sure.  I’d never seen the movie – I don’t like Tom Cruise all that much and legal suspense/drama stories even less.  But I remember Stephen King saying that it’s good, and I’d pretty much believe anything Stephen King says when it comes to stories.  So I grabbed a copy on impulse from a second-hand book store and decided to give it a try.

Quite true to the hype, it was indeed well-paced and had page-turning plot development.  Mitch is super-smart and very sharp.  I loved the way he pulled the strings of everyone around him, outwitting the Mob and confounding the FBI at the same time.  And the author also made him a pretty likable character - you don't end up thinking of him as an arrogant, self-important a$$h*le.    When he got scared, you got scared along with him, too.  You end up sympathizing with him and hoping he’d pull everything off and walk into the next available rosy sunset with a happily-ever-after in his suit pocket.  Story-wise it’s pure escapist.  Everything is just so unlikely and doubtful (I mean, come on, pulling one over both the Mob and the FBI?), but you go along with it and enjoy the ride anyway.  Pretty fun, actually.    

I did indeed appreciate the book.  But it is just not something I would reread, or see the film adaptation of.  Once is enough for me.  But that’s me and the legal suspense genre is not my cup of tea.  For those who like it though, read and enjoy to your heart’s content.