i ( )

Nobody told me this would happen! I guess its a sign of getting older, but the younger me would never have been able to enjoy mindless fluff like this. Devoid of any form of meaningful character development, this is just a well written, incredibly shallow page turner with a story that a small child could follow. ( )

Grisham on the Class Tort system, which is fairly unique to american legal practise. One of his favourite topics and picked up again here. In some respects this is almost a reworking of Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge into modern america. The language is simpliefied but the plot bares many resemblances.

Clay Carter II is a Public Defender, ie one of the lowest of the US lawyers ranks, helping those on government wages who can't afford anybody else at all. One day he is assigned to an untypical streets murder, a guy in rehab just shoots a stranger for no reason at all, not even a streets reason. Suspicious Clay investigates a little, but before he can get very far he is contacted by a mysterious source claiming insider information. THis source promises vast payments if everythign is kept quiet. And so Clay's meteoric rise to fortunes and fame begins. Case follows case and Clay can't but help make money even when he's spending fortunes on his law firm and women. Until, of course, things start going wrong.

This isn't Grisham at his best, because there isn't actually any courtroom scenes at all. However the prose rolls along at pace, and Clay is quite a rounded character struggling to reconsile his sudden fortune with his past life, and of course then there is the women he loves and the women he's with.

Fun adn entertaining, but ultimately trite. ( )

This book just drags on. By the time I was less than halfway through I had lost interest and just wanted the book to end. This book does not compare to The Runaway Jury or The Partner. Michael Beck did a good job narrating. I listened to the book from Audible (not on cassette). ( )

By far the worst book of Grisham's I have read. Poor character development and definitely no "education" of the character in question. Chalk it up to too many books. ( )