TAKE NOTE: My post includes spoilers, but I will warn you before hand. If you plan to read The Associate, I suggest you read it before you read my review.
Last night around midnight I put the book down with about 100 pages to go. I had to force myself real hard to put it down and turn in. It was already a few minutes pass midnight and if I kept reading, I would have finished it last night and woke up this morning 30 minutes after I was scheduled to be in the office After a long day of filing motions, arguing with managers at the Chancery division (typical) and just doing my law clerk thing inside the Daley center. I rushed home and picked it back up immediately. By the time I finished it, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the book. It’s not his best work, but a disappointing Grisham is still an enjoyable book.
*** The Following section will include spoilers***
Kyle’s situation starts off interesting when he is cornered into changing his plans from doing dirty honest legal work to working in one of the largest firms in the country against his morals. What he thought was a rumored video of a rape from his college days as a Beta, some how was resurfaced by a mysterious character named Bennie. Blackmailed by a video that recorded a questionable rape situation, Kyle had no choice but to follow the wishes of Bennie and his thugs. The Associate kept my attention. There was much going on in the book sex, blackmail, wiretapping, and hidden spy stuff. Lacked a little romance compared to his other books. Hey, I never said sex was considered romance. What really disappointed me were the last 50 pages or so. When Bennie was supposed to be taken down, I expected some action. Some punches thrown, gun firing, or at least Bennie actually being in the hotel room when it was raided by the FBI forcing him to jump out the window. Heck, I was foreseeing someone dying near the end of this novel. C’mon Grisham, lets add some of the same spice you had in A Time to Kill! Or the hotel room could have been rigged to blow when the FBI rushed in. While reading, it seemed like I was going to climb to a top of a mountain that would have one of the greatest view in the world. But in reality, the view was mediocre and the rest of the book took a dive…but only slightly.
As I mentioned before, a disappointing Grisham book is still is great. After evaluating the ending, it seemed like an ending that was more realistically to happen no matter how boring it may be. Books with sub par endings can only mean one thing; I can imagine my own alternatives!
A.V.H. 