The Broker [Unabridged] (Hardcover)

I have to say I think this isn't his best work...by a stretch. I find it difficult, really difficult, to criticise anything Grisham does because everything he publishes is well written and well researched. But I'm struggling to come up with a word to describe how I found The Broker. "Disappointing" is probably the fairest way to describe it. If you ignore smaller novels such as Bleachers then The Broker is (as far as I'm aware) Grisham's third novel where he deviates from the courtroom (or from lawyers at any rate). His first one - A Painted House - I thought was excellent. I thought with his second one - The Last Juror - which, despite the title was actually about a newspaper editor was a little shaky, but I gave him the benfit of the doubt. This third effort has left me wondering if he's better off sticking to what he does brilliantly. To all those who are claiming this is his "best book ever" then I urge you to read A Time To Kill, The Partner, The Firm, The Rainmaker, The Pelican Brief etc etc. They are all vastly superior to The Broker.

I started reading it with the usual anticipation I have when reading a Grisham novel. It started out ok. I then waited for something to happen. And waited. And waited. I finished the book and couldn't help thinking that I had just read the longest "vacation report" every written. Grisham quite clearly loves all things Italian (and tells us as much in his author's note). In fact he loves Italy so much so that he decides to pad out more than half the book with Italian phrases, detailed descriptions of Italian cuisine, the coffee drinking habits of Italians and then in incredible detail the entire history of Bologne. I love Italy, the language, the wine and the food. But if I wanted to learn more about Italy then I'd either visit the place or I'd buy an Italian phrase book. I kinda got the impression that Mr Grisham went and lived out there for 6 months or so, learned the lingo and loved it so much he decided to tell everyone about it, but then cleverly disguised is as his new best seller.

The plot is, by his standards, weak at best. You never really gain any real affection for the lead character (as you did with the one out of The Partner for example) and some of the other characters that are introduced in detail early on in the book then simply disappear towards the end. I don't really want to criticise anything else about the book as I'm just hoping this was a one off.

It's fairly obvious that some authors reach such a pinacle in their careers that they can often go a few years churning out well below average books whilst selling millions of copies as they coast along on their reputation. James Patterson's "Alex Cross" series immediately springs to mind (his last one - London Bridges - was woefully bad). To be honest if The Broker had been written by a new, unknown author then I'd be surprised if it would have even got published.

I hope and pray that Grisham reverts back to writing about what he knows best - lawyers and courtrooms. Leave the spy thrillers to the likes of Clancy and Ludlum.

It is so painfully clear that Grisham's infatuation with his own immersion in Italian life has totally overrun this book at the expense of EVERY part of the story. There is an analysis of learning about Italian life, language, culture and cuisine from the point of view of an American. In the background, however is poorly defined plot and a veritable carousel of characters being introduced in some depth before inexplicably disappearing never to be heard from again. Plot devices are left half baked, seemingly relevant events are left to wither away into mystery (a frustrating kind of mystery - not the dramatic type) all in all, this book is a mess. Grisham should simply have written an account of his time in Italy and how clever he thinks he is for doing so - not producing this confused gibberish.

This book deserves the lowest acolade of 1 star - but I give it two for having a decent enough concept, ruined by self-important and ridiculous execution.

Choosing a new Grisham novel is rarely a difficult decision, he's a good story teller and several of his earlier works have been converted into big-budget movies. I doubt that this will be one of them however. As I progressed through the story, I became more and more interested in the story that wasn't told - the events leading up to Backman's arrest 6 years ago - and wondered if this book was actually a sequel to a previous novel which covered that storyline. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, and it made me wonder if Grisham could have created a better novel if he had told that story rather than this "sequel". It seems to me that there would have been a lot more excitement, more tension and good old entertainment than in The Broker.

Much of the story takes place in Italy, where Backman has been forced to hide (by the CIA), and it wasn't long before I gained the impression that his culture-adaptation and learning of local history was similar to his own experiences (Grisham's) while he researched the book. I know that it was right that he should go there to better understand the ways of Italian people, but his experiences seemed to influence the story more than they need have done. And I found Grisham's stereotypes of "Europeans" very irritating, occasionally referring to them as if everyone in Europe comes from the same small village. While not exactly racist, it does nevertheless sound rather ridiculous, as we know only too well that the characteristics and attitudes of European people vary enormously, in fact in Britain alone we have a widely diverse culture. To illustrate, I quote from Chapter 12 : "Space is shared in Europe, not protected. Tables are shared, the air evidently is shared because smoking bothers no-one. Cars, houses, buses, apartments, cafes - so many important aspects of life are smaller, thus more cramped, thus more willingly shared. It's not offensive to go nose-to-nose with an acquaintance during routine conversation because no space is being violated. Talk with your hands, hug, embrace, even kiss at times."

Well, that may be true in Bologna, but I'm not sure it applies in Basildon. Or Birmingham, or Basingstoke, or Bolton for that matter.

Despite this sweeping, generalistic description of us "Europeans", Grisham is keen to point out the cultural differences between those from Texas compared to those of Tenessee, the characteristics of a Canadian as opposed to an American, and why someone from Manhattan is different from someone from Memphis.

And I'm sure that many readers of The Broker will have found, as I did, the seemingly endless translations of Italian to English more than a little irritating. We got the point after one page of it - but it went on for ages until it became like an Italian-English phrase book.

This book could have been hugely improved by omitting the naive 'Euro-observations' (American style), cutting back on 90% of the translation, and perhaps replacing that with the untold story of the events which took place before Backman was jailed. At least half a book could have been dedicated to those past years, it could have been called 'Part One', there could then have been a 'Part Two' entitled "Six Years Later" which would have been a condensed version of the story we are actually given here. This was, in the end, frustrating for me because there's no doubt that Grisham is (was?) a very good story-teller, but on this occasion he has been rather casual, not stretching his once vivid imagination to the fullest, and failing to come up with a really gripping, entertaining story that we all know he is capable of. And I have to disagree with the opinions of one or two other reviewers here who thought the ending was fast-paced and exciting; it wasn't. Quite the opposite - I was waiting for some kind of bombshell, but then I reached the final page and I was still waiting. It just fizzled away meekly.

It's almost as if Grisham spent an extended holiday in Italy, decided to write his memoirs of that mini-odyssey, and to make money he built a mildly interesting fictional story around it.