The Firm

source : Amazon.com
author : John Grisham

Hard to believe, but there was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," and the idea of a law firm controlled by the Mafia was an outlandish proposition. This intelligent, ensnaring story came out of nowhere--Oxford, Mississippi, where Grisham was a small-town lawyer--and quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, with good reason.
Mitch McDeere, the appealing hero, is a poor kid whose only assets are a first-class mind, a Harvard law degree, and a beautiful, loving wife. When a Memphis law firm makes him an offer he really can't refuse, he trades his old Nissan for a new BMW, his cramped apartment for a house in the best part of town, and puts in long hours finding tax shelters for Texans who'd rather pay a lawyer than the IRS. Nothing criminal about that. He'd be set for life, if only associates at the firm didn't have a funny habit of dying, and the FBI wasn't trying to get Mitch to turn his colleagues in. The tempo and pacing are brilliant, the thrills keep coming, and the finish has a wonderful ironic flourish. It's not hard to see why Grisham changed the genre permanently with this one, and few of his colleagues in a very crowded field come close to equaling him. --Jane Adams

Grisham's gripping fiction debut describes the inner workings of a law firm set up by the Mafia to launder money and concoct tax evasions. Mitchell McDeere, third in his class at Harvard Law, is wooed relentlessly by the prestigious Memphis tax firm of Bendini, Lambert and Locke. Succumbing to the firm's high-powered salesmanship, he rejects some of the country's best-known firms to join the group, where he is awed by the opulent lifestyle pressed upon him. But the company has ruthless, underhanded methods of gathering information (they wire the homes of all associates) and ensuring loyalty (social situations are severely monitored). The firm's mania for security and secrecy, combined with the fact that the only lawyers who have ever left did so in coffins--five in 15 years--arouse Mitch and wife Abby's curiosity, and they rapidly find themselves in a labyrinth of intrigue and danger. Grisham, a criminal defense attorney, lucidly describes law office procedures at the highest levels, smoothly meshing them with the criminal events of the narrative. Mitch and Abby are appealing characters, though a suspension of disbelief may be required to accept their super-cool behavior while they are on the run from both the FBI and the Mafia. Nonetheless, readers will be totally hooked by this unusual and absorbing story.   -- Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reader's review:
The Firm was published in 1991, and almost overnight John Grisham became a household name and a force to be reckoned with in the realm of fiction. There must be something in the water down in Oxford, Mississippi; while Grisham is certainly no Faulkner, he is a man who knows how to make a novel come alive and ensnare any reader who comes along. I really do not care for lawyer-type novels as a general rule, and the fact that Grisham makes such stories so gripping and fascinating has me quite in awe of his talents. Mitch McDeere (whom many may still envision as Tom Cruise, since he played in the role in the movie based on this novel) is a highly intelligent yet monetarily challenged law student finishing up his degree with high honors at Harvard. Holding serious offers from prestigious Chicago and Wall Street law firms for his services, he decides to go ahead and hear the pitch from a smaller law firm in Memphis. What he hears is an offer he cannot believe and cannot refuse. A starting salary significantly higher than he would make elsewhere, promises of large bonuses for passing the bar exam and succeeding on the job, an ascension to partner in as short a time as a decade, a new house with a miniscule mortgage rate, a brand new BMW, and other perks soon have Mitch and his wife Abby settling down in Memphis to enjoy a life of luxury (albeit with hard work on his part). The firm really seems to care about Mitch and his family, wanting happy marriages with several children, to a degree that has Abby a little suspicious. Mitch passes the bar exam, and life is great, despite the fact he is working eighty hours or more a week. Then an FBI agent comes to see him, dropping hints of nefarious dealings at the law firm, asking him for help. Thus begins a journey in which Mitch must first decide whether to risk the lives of himself and his wife to violate his legal oaths and sell out the Mafia-controlled law firm, or take his chances, make his millions, and hope the feds don't find enough evidence to eventually land him and all of his coworkers in prison. It is really an exciting story, as the McDeeres have to deal with and evade both the feds and the Mafia in their efforts to somehow bring down the firm without sacrificing their own lives.

I found the schemes Mitch employed on his behalf were quite inventive and plausible, but as the novel progressed in the later stages I found myself wondering how the Mafia could really be incompetent enough in their surveillance to keep losing track of Mitch at crucial times. I can understand the feds having a little trouble staying a step behind him, but you would think that the Mafia could have put an end to all of these games (and to Mitch) long before he got into a position to bring them down. Also, Abby's transition from a housewife who wishes her husband wasn't spending all of his time at work to a wily assistant to her scared and scheming husband is a little abrupt. I also had a hard time completely liking the protagonist after a certain indiscretion on his part early on. I'm not complaining, though, because the tension of the novel ratchets up nicely in the final stages and kept me turning the pages with bated breath. I haven't read Grisham's more recent novels, so I can't say whether or not the quality of his writing has gone down over the years. What I can say, having read both A Time to Kill and The Firm, Grisham's first two novels, is that the man really and truly had it at the start of his career. The action never ebbs, the story never bogs down, and the reader finds himself hanging on for dear life and loving every minute of it as he/she follows the course of whatever events Grisham chooses to relate. -- Daniel Jolley

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