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John Grisham
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Pages: 480 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0099457164
Pub: Arrow Books Ltd
Pub date: 2007-03-01
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 82169
Reader Reviews:
Hopeless Thriller (0/0 people found this helpful)
Thriller is not John's league and should stay away from it. Lot many flaws. Though can be a good tourist guide who is planning to visit Bologna for the first time.
Not so great (0/0 people found this helpful)
This was my first JG novel. I had heard alot of good things about him, and of course I know there are one or two films made from his books. I settled down to read.
I was a little disappointed with the story line, I thought it started well with the pardon and the journey to Italy. But then I started to get a bit bored to be honest. How is it that one guy who was a lawyer who then went to prison for six years can suddenly run rings around some of the best assasins in the world?? The story seemed to just suddenly end leaving me wondering what happened next, although not in the I think there should be another book sense. It just seemed to end, like everything was suddenly ok, but how was it??
I don't think I am as disappointed as other people as I havent ever read anything else by JG. Also it hasnt put me off reading other books by him, as reviews of his books are so good there must be something worth reading?
One Novel - two genres - oh dear! (0/0 people found this helpful)
This is my first John Grisham and if it weren't for the other reviews I would wonder how on earth he is so popular, let alone published.
Although the plot is all about disgraced lawyer Joel Backman it is in fact two completely different novels, requiring completely different writers.
Novel one is a very feeble thriller about the CIA pardoning Backman so he can be set up for assassination to ascertain the source of a threat to the USA.
Novel two is about the all American Backman establishing a new identity in Italy, with never ending Italian lessons and some very bad travelogue writing. This seems some failed attempt by Grisham to enthuse his readers with his love of Italy, and reads like a wearisome attempt at emulating films like "Under the Tuscan Sun".
Sorry John, I couldn't even finish the book.
I am sure your other novels are better than this aberration, but it will be a long time before I read another of your efforts.
A Change For Mr. Grisham, but Still a Delightful Book (0/0 people found this helpful)
Arthur Morgan is a lame duck president. He lost every state save Alaska. His dream is to retire there, get a nice place and ignore the press forever, however before escaping away he wants to take a long languid vacation in the Caribbean, he just has to clean up a few details in his last days in office. And some of those details are last minute pardons. Some he's selling, a sleazy and very illegal practice and one he is granting as a favor to the CIA.
The CIA's wheelchair bound director wants former power broker, lobbyist Joel Backman freed. Backman had plead guilty to treason when he was caught trying to sell the software that would control a series of spy satellites that the US intelligence community didn't know anything about. They don't even know who the satellites belong to. Backman has served six years of a fourteen year sentence. The CIA wants to spirit him out of the country, give him a new identity, leak the info to foreign intelligence services and wait and see who comes to kill him. Once they can identify his killers, they'll know who the satellites belong to.
However the CIA spends a couple months pretending to be Joel's friend, hoping he might talk. They set him up in Italy, give him a tutor, teach him how to be Italian. But their plan backfires, because Backman gets on to them and uses his new found skills to slip away from his handlers. Now he is on the run and a man on the run is something that Grisham is superb at. Though the tension isn't has high as say in the PELICAN BRIEF or even in THE LAST JUROR, it is slow building and Mr. Grisham's description of the food, the culture and the Italian language put me right in the story, so that the slow parts were so entertaining that they just sort of slipped on by. By the time I finished, I almost felt Italian. This is just a super story, by an extraordinary writer, who isn't afraid to change his pace on occasion. You can't go wrong with this one.
Review Submitted by Captain Katie Osborne
Not his best (0/0 people found this helpful)
The author admits that much of the subject matter is not his area of knowledge or expertise. It shows. The central premise of the story, the satellite, is frankly absurd and drains any interest from the story. The only real interest comes from the time in Italy where you start to feel more connected as the author draws on his own experiences of spending time in Italy and enjoying a very different way of life from the average American. Overall a pleasant enough read but not a lot to recommend it.
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