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Product Description
From Amazon
With her sparkling voice and superb acting ability, Blair Brown gives an impressive reading of this John Grisham blockbuster. The story hinges on a young boy who gets an unwanted earful of murder, politics--and dangerous secrets about both--from a conscience-stricken mob lawyer bent on suicide. "I can tell you where the body is... the most notorious undiscovered corpse of our time." Just the kind of information most children don't need, especially when the snakeskin-wearing hit man finds out what he knows. Aside from musical cues scattered as superfluously as laugh tracks on a sitcom, the production quality is stellar, preserving the crispness of Blair's voice and the nuances of her excellent interpretation. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes) --George Laney
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Fans of the bestselling Grisham will be pleased to note that he is once more on Firm ground: his latest legal thriller offers a clever, compelling plot coupled with two singular protagonists sure to elicit readers' empathy. Eleven-year-old Mark Sway, taking his kid brother for a smoke behind their Memphis trailer park, witnesses the suicide of a lawyer "driven crazy" by a lethal secret. Before he dies, the man confides to Mark where the body of a recently murdered U.S. senator lies buried, and the game's afoot. Trailed by the police, the FBI and assorted Mafia types (the deceased politico was the victim of "a successful New Orleans street thug"), Mark retains--for one dollar--the services of Reggie Love, a 50ish female lawyer. This uncommon attorney-client relationship adds an affecting, unusually humanistic layer to the novel's tension-filled events. Mark, raised by a divorced mother and wise beyond his years, thinks chiefly in terms of movies and TV; Reggie, a street-smart survivor of an acrimonious divorce, is often unsure whether to hug or slug her precocious client. True to form, Grisham employs just enough foreshadowing to keep the suspense rolling ("Neither of them could know that . . . "), and propels his action at the requisite breakneck pace. Occasional plot improbabilities and stylistic quibbles--a few fuzzy characterizations; overstatement of already obvious points; Mark's sporadic adult phraseology--will not deter readers from enjoying a rousing read. 950,000 first printing; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections; Reader's Digest Condensed Book selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
MARK WAS ELEVEN AND HAD BEEN SMOKING OFF AND on for two years, never trying to quit but being careful not to get hooked. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
MARK WAS ELEVEN AND HAD BEEN SMOKING OFF AND on for two years, never trying to quit but being careful not to get hooked. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
unimpressed,
By "grubby15" (Stuttgart, Germany) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Client (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm a college student studying abroad in Germany, and starved for some english reading material I picked up The Client in a bookstore here. I had never read any Grisham but there isn't much english selection in German book stores. Frankly, I was unimpressed. The story is halfway decent, but Grisham has no identifiable style to speak of. It reads like a 3rd grade essay on the pyramids. The characterization is forced and contrived. There's not one character with any depth, and even their names are ridiculous. As a study abroad student I can't help but feel ashamed that our country somehow made this book a bestseller. If you have a reading level above that of a 10 year old, pick up a John Irving novel, or even a Harry Potter book! Save yourself from the mind-numbing nothingness that is John Grisham.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad plot,
By
This review is from: The Client (Mass Market Paperback)
I have read about half of Grisham's works. Most were ok. Until I tried to read "King of Torts" I thought "The Client" was the worst. This book just has a stupid plot, not particularly poorly written, just a plot that made no sense.
1.0 out of 5 stars
It just doesn't make sense.,
By
This review is from: The Client (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm willing to suspend disbelief when I read a novel. Frankly, I frequently read novels as an escape -- but that's a whole 'nother issue. The problem with this book is that the premise is so fundamentally flawed that it's hard to become engrossed. Basically, within the first chapter or so a kid learns a secret that the mob wants kept quiet. The underlying assumption of the balance of the novel is fundamenatally flawed. The mob knows that the kid has the secret and the book is based on the assumption that they won't rub him out as long as he doesn't tell. It makes no sense. As long as he hasn't told anyone, there is something to be gained by getting rid of him. If he spills the beans, maybe they'll be pissed and retailiate, but probably not -- the cat's out of the bag; it's too late. The book attempts to maintain the tension under the illogical assumption that the mob will vacillate over what to do about the kid (who is annoyingly precocious) while he keeps the secret. When the plot is so fundamentally flawed, and the kid is so precoiously annoying, I can't suspend disbelief and enjoy the book while I'm soaking up 'rays on the beach.
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