I’ve just finished reading The Broker by John Grisham and I have to say that I enjoyed every single page of it.
Although I’ve read several novels by Grisham, what I found outstanding in this one was the author’s ability to combine the pleasures of traveling with the suspense of a thrilling chase of a disgraced lawyer who has to run for his life around Italy, Switzerland and the U.S.
With a very fast pace, the book also gives the reader the chance to relax and enjoy the very detailed descriptions of the small town of Treviso and the big areas of Bologna, with their tasty Trattorias and Cafés and their stylish way of living.
While the chase’s going on, the main character faces the challenge of not only running for his live but adjusting to a different culture and learning a foreign language, which totally remained me of the early days of a student or a traveler trying to grasp for any word that sounds familiar in order to participate in a conversation or to get the simplest things in life such a cup of coffee.
The descriptions are so clear that it’s easy to picture everyone of the scenes that are presented as the lawyer runs out of time to escape from the “bad guys” who want to get ride of him, at the same time that he manages to get closer to home by the hour.
With one last ace up his sleeve, “the broker” plays his final game, risking all what he has and what he has tried to save, hoping that this time, things will work out just fine for him.
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