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It’s been a few years since I read any Grisham. (As a kid I remember repeatedly rereading The Client and loving it.) He may not be a genius of proper “high” literature but he can be relied upon for a solid legal thriller every once in a while. In fact this one was rather short on the legal part, more of a proper thriller with elements of international intrigue. It made for a great road trip “read” for Husband and I.

Joel Backman was known as “The Broker” in his former life as high-powered Washington, D.C. attorney, lobbyist and power broker. He had connections, he had the big firm, he had the BIG money, and he was known to be rather unscrupulous in the pursuit of the mighty dollar and his clients’ victory. But when the story opens, he’s six years into a prison sentence, serving in isolation. The outgoing president is convinced by the CIA in the final moments of his presidency to pardon Backman – but not for his own good. The CIA is still trying to answer all the questions relating to the Backman case, and they hope that upon his release, they’ll get to sit back and watch who assassinates him, thus resolving a question of national security.

I’ll leave the international espionage parts vague for now – I could spend all day trying to detail this fairly complicated case. If you go check out this book yourself it will all be explained. For now you should know this: Backman is shipped overseas by the CIA and set up with a new identity as Marco Lazare, an Italian raised in Canada and thus just now furiously studying the Italian language. He eventually ends up going on the run, escaping his CIA handlers, dodging possible assassins of a variety of nationalities, and fleeing back to the US to blow the cover off the security concern involving spy satellites and jamming software.

The techies among us will, I daresay, be dissatisfied with the tech details of the case; I think it’s fairly simplistic and a little dated by now. But if you can put this aside (it’s not sci fi, after all), it’s a fun story of intrigue. We have to wonder along with Backman/Marco where the threat is coming from, who he can trust, and what he should do with the information he carries. What he once hoped to make a fortune off of now endangers his life, and The Broker for the first time is concerned with Doing The Right Thing rather than Making The Buck. The greatest sort of plot development is in Backman/Marco’s growth from The Broker into a decent human being.

Husband was disappointed that there wasn’t more blow-em-up gore and bad-ass action (in other words, Backman is no Jack Reacher). But this is just a slightly different kind of book, that’s all. I found it engrossing and entertaining; it did its job. It’s light reading but as such, I thought it was successful.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: audio, legal thriller, thriller |