Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Broker by John Grisham

I can't say that I am a huge Grisham fan or have read more than a few of his books, so I tread carefully here.

Grisham has a knack for making the law very interesting. His style is easy to read and understand, but I find his writing to be more time spending than brain food. I wasn't impressed with The Broker at all, either as a person or as a book. I think Grisham took the opportunity to show how fine is the line between a good law story and cheap spy drivel. He seems to be writing because his publisher needs the next book out and not because he actually had a story he wanted to tell us. He does give a warning in the Author's note about all the espionage. Thank you, Grisham.

The Broker, Joel Backman, has gotten hold of a program which controls the world's most sophisticated satellite system. After a six year stint in prison he is pardoned by the president and taken by the CIA to Italy. There, they wait to see who will kill him in order to find out where these satellites came from. It is all very fast paced except the bit where he is learning Italian. The only thing more tedious than learning a language is reading about someone learning a language. Grisham does dive in with the running and killings, just before you throw down the book and stamp on it, which carries you to the end. Now, you can sleep, a jerk like Backman is once again safe in the streets.

2 comments:

Carlton Farmer said...

I have enjoyed the few Grisham books that I have read, but this one does not sound very good.

Anonymous said...

Yea this book was not of Grishams better ones. He has mad much better. like The Runaway Jury and Bleachers. But he is still a great author and will continue to read his books. But this book inpeticular did not spark my interest and i seemed to find my self wanting to put the book down the majority of the time.