pansy4agirl's Full Review: John Grisham and Janet McAlpin - The Client
I have read (and re-read) all the Grisham books, sometimes thinking I wish I could call John Grisham, and say "Hurry up, will you? I finished that one in one day!" - Maybe I should wait to buy them, so that I will finish closer to the time that the next one comes out.
Disclaimer: This review tells SOME details of the book.
Of all the Grisham books, this one is my favorite. (This is where the "cons" (from above) come in, and I say that I was, however, disappointed in the movie). The story grips you from the very first paragraphs, and doesn't let you go til the last page. That is my definition of a 'good book'.
Two brothers sneak out of the house, and head into the woods, where the older one can teach his younger brother about cigarettes. They leave the trailer park where they live, and head into the woods, sitting on a log. All of a sudden, a big black Lincoln drives into the woods, and stops just near them. They kneel down, quiet, waiting, watching.....
The driver gets out, and goes to the back of the car, dropping to his knees. He puts a length of hose on the exhaust pipe, and runs the other end inside the car. He gets back in, leaving the two innocent witnesses hiding in the bushes.
They sit there, waiting.......then realizing what the hose was for, the older brother crawls close to the back of the car, and removes the hose laying it innocently on the ground, then crawling back to where his little brother waits silently...The man jumps from the car, and stomps back to the rear, sees the hose laying harmlessly on the ground - looks around, then replaces it once again to the exhaust....
this scene is repeated a couple times, where the brother tries to "save" the man from suicide....until finally, the man jumps from the car too fast for the boy, grabs him and throws him inside the car, leaving the little brother in the bushes, the man not realizing that he is there.
The man is drunk....a bottle of whiskey in his hand, a gun on the seat of the car. The man starts talking...rambling... to the boy, even going so far as to tell him WHY he is trying to kill himself.
".......One of his clients did a very terrible thing, then set the lawyer up to take the fall for it.....seeing no way out of his dilemma, the lawyer decided that this is the only course he can take......"
The man starts teasing the boy - "isn't today a good day for us to die? Pretty soon you will start to inhale the fumes, and you will just get sleepy.....don't fight it, just fall asleep"
The boy listens, his eyes on the gun, then the door handle, as he tries to think thru the steps of opening the door, grabbing the gun, and rushing from the car......could he do it? or would the man kill him?
In a second that probably feels like hours to the boy, the gun goes off, he grabs the door handle, and falls to the ground on the outside of the car....the man is too drunk, or simply isn't fast enough to catch him, and the boy crawls to where his brother sits - - who, having heard the gun go off, thinks his brother was shot...
But the man is not yet finished with them, as he jumps from the car, and they are forced to witness the terror that sends the younger brother into a silent trance, unable to make any sounds but a soft whimper.....
Turns out the dead man is an influential lawyer defending a "scumbag" for murdering a US Senator....but there is no body.....
And very soon, every suit and every badge in the area wants to talk to the boy, positive that the man, in his last moments, would tell his secrets -
This is just the start of the book, which becomes more intense and gripping with each pageturn. There are a few delightful parts as well, and if you have not yet read it, I am sure you will find these as enjoyable as I did - including (but not limited to) -
*how he met the lawyer "Reggie Love" - and their first interview with the FBI.......she is a "new" lawyer, but shows that she and her client won't be trampled by the "big guys".
*the Big Escape - in the hospital, where his brother is recovering, he outsmarts the FBI and police, leaving the hospital without a trace.
As with other Grisham books, I like the way the author develops his characters -- you almost believe that you "know" them - and can relate to what they are experiencing. He takes his time with some events, drawing them out almost second by second - and with others, the details seem almost to fly by, and you're barely able to witness all the "facts" - but almost helpless to stop and go back, you keep reading - drawn almost into the story as a part OF the story.....so that YOUR experience with the book, IS the book.....
It is easy to put myself in Grisham characters, because they are "real" people - He does not write of aliens, or monsters, even tho his stories are serious and dramatic. If you have never read a John Grisham novel, you can start with any one of them - each story is complete of itself, this one especially, meaning there are a couple of his books that touch of events that you will see in other books, but you can still enjoy the one you are reading, even if you have not yet read where that reference comes from.
I hope I didn't give any key points away, because this book surely merits a reading, cover to cover, probably several times over. And if you, like me, enjoy them - then we can wait together for the next one to come out! (And I won't call him, I'm sure he already knows!)
In the two years since The Firm first captured the imagination of America s readers, John Grisham, with three consecutive number-one bestsellers, has ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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