Sunday 10 February 2013

Book Review: 'The Associate' by John Grisham




Blurb:
“Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation.  But he has secret in his past, a secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life.

That secret has fallen into the hands of the wrong people, and the only way Kyle can protect it is to play their game. They want him to become an associate at the largest law firm in the world. With a big salary and great prospects, the job would be a dream come true for more ambitious young lawyers.

But for Kyle it’s a nightmare as, in addition to practising law, he must also lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison – if it doesn’t get him killed first…”

My thoughts:
Having never read a John Grisham novel before, I wasn’t exactly too sure what to expect. What I read proved to be gripping, nigh on impossible to put down, and just bloody brilliant!

The story follows Kyle as he tries first to come to terms with the blackmail he’s being faced with, then as he tries to formulate a plan to break away from it, and finally as he puts that plan into action. It’s written in such a style that makes it easy to follow and put yourself in Kyle’s shoes. It is perhaps this writing style that makes it so hard to put down.

I was slightly worried that, given Kyle’s a legal student, there might some legal mumbo-jumbo used that I wouldn’t understand but, thankfully, Grisham seems to have taken that into consideration and makes everything easy to understand.

As well as focusing on Kyle’s predicament, it also looks at the relationships that suffer as a result. Although he’s the main character, you also become drawn into the lives of some of his friends and family. You feel every emotion that Kyle feels but also the emotions that are shared by his acquaintances.

If this book is anything to go by, it’s easy to see why Grisham is such a successful author and I know that this will not be the last book by him I read.