Customer Reviews
Portrait of a Flawed Legal Genius - By: Donald Mitchell, 11 May 2008 
A great lawyer is meticulous, calculating, aggressive, relentless, & prepared for anything. John Grisham lovingly shares an intricate plot to provide you with an unforgettable portrait of those qualities in action. In the process, you'll also see a man whose soul is offended by his profession.
Ultimately, this book is about a dream . . . a dream that may be more dangerous than an addictive drug. What will you do to capture your dream? That's what you'll be asking yourself after you read The Partner.
The beginning of the book seems like an international espionage thriller. A group of private detectives track down a fugitive to a little town in Brazil near the border with Paraguay. They pounce, & the fugitive is in for his worst nightmare . . . remorseless torture aimed at getting him to tell something he doesn't know.
Soon, an unlikely intervention creates a whole new vector for the story. The fugitive has to face the music from a lot of angry lawyers . . . including his former partners.
Like many legal thrillers, you'll be getting no more information than you need to know to follow the action. Pay attention to the questions that occur to you: Thinking about what might have happened is half the fun of this book.
If you aren't interested in the ins & outs of how lawyers think about criminal issues, you won't like this book as much as I did. I was impressed at how well the legal issues were displayed without being too technical. Remember that lawyers usuallly spend a lot of time thinking through how the opposing attorney will respond to various probes.
Watch out for the unexpected!
A real page-turner - By: R. Walker, 22 Feb 2008 
If you want a novel that will keep you on the edge of your seat, this is for you. Full of twists & turns, Grisham takes his readers on a rollercoaster of emotions - pity, excitement & sometimes sheer bewilderment. The author presents you with the bad guy - an ex-lawyer callled Lanigan who stole $90 million from his firm - but immediately gets you on his side and, as the story unfolds, the situation is turned completely on its head. Lanigan has thought his plan through in the finest detail - he simply can't fail, can he? A brilliant storyline, another great novel from Mr Grisham. Is Lanigan the villain or the hero of the piece? You decide.
Not as good as his other books - By: Tamianne, 17 Jan 2008 
This is my least favourite John Grisham book so far. I didn't find the characters convincing & the ending was weak. It was a bit of a letdown after just having read "The Firm".
Great story, very technical, weakly forecasted ending - By: B. Rahme, 24 Nov 2007 Let me first say that I'm a fan of Grisham's style & skill & I've read most of his books. This book is longer than most of Grisham's books. It is very technical (lot's of law maneuvering) which is positive but it gets slightly long winded toward the very end. Like most Grisham books, it follows a common formula: Hero in a pickle, hero works very hard, hero has a trick up their sleeve, hero wraps it alll up nicely. *Spoiler Alert* Except that in this case the hero was blindsided by a betrayal. I thought it was weak because a.) The betrayal is very foreseeable by the Hero, b.) It didn't make sense for the betrayer to wait until the end of the book to suddenly do their deed. & c.) The Hero was close to the betrayer's family. He could just go to the family & wait it out. There was little foreshadowing, little character development of the betrayer to the goal of the betrayal & an abrupt ending. Overalll though, it's a very good read which is why I gave it four stars... perhaps just don't read the very last few pages & make up your own ending... :-)
The Best Laid Plans .....! - By: Mrs. C. Calisgil, 20 Nov 2007 Another great read from the master storyteller. Patrick Lanigan steals $90m from his partners, then disappears. Will he ever get caught and, if so, how will Mr Lanigan get himself out of that one? Some clever plotting - you'll want to read the whole in one sitting!
