 First edition cover | |
| Author | John Grisham |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | January 26, 2009 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 384 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-51783-6 |
| OCLC | 232980206 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3557.R5355 A95 2009 |
| Preceded by | The Appeal |
| Followed by | Ford County |
The Associate is a legal thriller by John Grisham. His 21st novel, it was published by Doubleday and released in the United States on January 26, 2009.
As an idealistic graduate of Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal , Kyle McAvoy has the promise of a highly successful career, although after graduation, he intends to devote three years to public service before applying for employment with a prestigious firm.
His plans are derailed when he is approached by two FBI agents (or such they seem) who interrogate him and then pass him on to a mysterious man known only as Bennie Wright. Bennie has a videotape of a party that took place in Kyle's apartment five years earlier, when he was an undergraduate student at Duquesne University. In it, two of Kyle's fraternity brothers, Joey Bernardo and Baxter Tate, are seen having sexual relations with Elaine Keenan, a young woman who later claimed she was raped while unconscious, a charge seemingly supported by Joey's asking Baxter, "Is she awake?" on the tape.
At the time, the incident was investigated by local police, who determined there had been no assault and declined to take further action. With the tape now in his possession, Bennie threatens to expose Kyle's secret unless he cooperates with Bennie and his associates.
Bennie's plan is to have Kyle accept a position at New York City-based Scully & Pershing, the world's largest law firm, which is representing Trylon Aeronautics in its case against Bartin Dynamics. The two defense contractors had joined forces to design the B-10 HyperSonic Bomber for The Pentagon, and when they won the contract over Lockheed, the competitor sought support from senators and lobbyists. Legal battles ensued, and Trylon and Bartin, each laying claim to ownership of the design and technologies developed for the project, are now ready to wage battle against each other in court. Kyle will be required to infiltrate Scully & Pershing's files and deliver to Bennie crucial information desired by the people he represents.
His first instinct is to ignore Bennie's blackmail threats and deal with whatever consequences might arise, but the thought of the shame and embarrassment his family would suffer if he is indicted for the incident in his past, not to mention the negative impact on his own future, leads him to agree to Bennie's demands.
Constantly under surveillance while outdoors and living in an apartment in which he knows bugs and cameras have been hidden, Kyle slowly learns how to trick those who are trailing him into believing he is unaware of their presence. He seeks help from Joey, who has more to lose than Kyle does if the videotape is made public, and with his old friend as a somewhat unwilling accomplice, plots to outwit his blackmailer. He creates an interest in different spy novels, and buys them at a used book store. He learns about all the different technical components and devices used for spying and learns about a shop nearby, whose owners claimed to be "Ex-CIA," specializing in gadgets and devices specially used for surveillance.
What he doesn't anticipate is the re-emergence of Elaine, who still maintains she was raped, and Baxter, who has completed a lengthy stint in rehab and, as part of his twelve-step program, wants to make amends to the woman he raped. His admission of guilt will give Elaine the proof she needs to file charges, and with Kyle drawn into the spotlight, his position at Scully & Pershing will be jeopardized, a risk Bennie must eliminate by any means. Baxter is found shot dead, with no evidence of the murderer's identity, although Kyle is certain that Bennie ordered it.
After working at the law firm's 'boot camp' for some months, as do all new associates, Kyle eventually gets drawn into the Trylon case and is granted access to the highly secure computer room where the confidential information is stored. Bennie and Nigel, a computer expert, force him to use a thumbdrive to download the files, which he does. But by this time, realizing that Bennie is nearly always one step ahead of him, Kyle has spoken to Roy Benedict, a criminal lawyer and former FBI operative. He tells Roy the whole story.
Roy still has good connections within the FBI, and they set up an operation to catch Bennie while Roy transfers information that is not sensitive. But it misfires; Bennie and his associates vanish and remain unidentified and unapprehended, although Kyle thinks he's working for some other branch of the government.
Kyle admits his actions to the firm's partners, and agrees to leave their employ immediately and not practice law in New York. He also voices his belief that one of the firm's partners has acted as a 'mole,' passing information to Bennie.
Refusing the FBI's offer of witness protection, Kyle goes home to his father, also a lawyer, who knows the whole sorry saga and had already signed a deal with Elaine and her lawyer. Kyle plans to become a partner in his father's law firm, namely McAvoy & McAvoy. Roy, himself a highly paid New York lawyer, is a bit surprised at Kyle's decision: "The Editor of the Yale Law Journal – practicing law on Main Street in York, Pennsylvania?" to which Kyle answers exuberantly: "I have never been more serious! Real clients. Real people. Real cases. Deer hunting on Saturdays, Steelers on Sundays. A real life."
Grisham's plot is based in part on the case of a Las Vegas man, William Beebe, who, as part of his Alcoholics Anonymous program, wrote a letter of apology to a woman named Liz Seccuro that he had raped at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia in 1984. It had been a gang rape at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity – the other two perpetrators were not indicted. Her claim had been ignored by the University police and school officials at the time, but nineteen years later his admission of guilt resulted in his being charged with rape by Charlottesville Police and the Commonwealth of Virginia, and eventually serving six months in prison after plea bargaining. [1]
Janet Maslin of The New York Times stated, "Mr. Grisham so often writes similar books that the same things must be said of them. The Associate is true to form: it grabs the reader quickly, becomes impossible to put down, stays that way through most of its story, and then escalates into plotting so crazily far-fetched that it defies resolution. Kyle McAvoy is another of the two-dimensional yet terrifically likeable heroes who come to life on Mr. Grisham’s pages only to evaporate later. It’s easy to predict what choice Kyle will make at the end of the novel. It’s impossible to imagine, let alone care, what his life will be like once the improbably wild furor surrounding this one lone law-firm recruit is over." [2]
Richard Rayner of the Los Angeles Times said, "Nobody goes to Grisham for style, and there's a sense here of a skilled craftsman cranking it out on autopilot. Nothing much happens, and when it happens, it's pretty predictable. Grisham's Kyle is cardboard-thin (Scott Turow has a much defter hand with character), but Grisham is an effective lens through which we observe the intricacies of corporate law, an easily corruptible world governed, not by right and wrong, but by the concept of the billable hour . . . The Associate springs to angry life from time to time, but on the whole it's by the numbers, a plodding page-turner. But it's still a page-turner: Many of Grisham's legions of fans will doubtless sign up for this latest ride, eager to see how Kyle McAvoy manages to get himself out of the hole. With ideals restored, Grisham ensures, making Kyle an appealing model for our troubled new time." [3]
Patrick Anderson of The Washington Post observed, "Grisham has long since proved his narrative talent. His plot is highly fanciful, and he makes it easy for us to keep flipping the pages to see if Kyle can find a way out of this mess. He mostly writes clean, workmanlike prose, but I have one stylistic complaint about the novel. It's important to Grisham not only that Kyle be seen as noble, but also that his tormentor be a rat. Thus, as Bennie spits out his nefarious demands, we're variously told that he speaks 'with a sneer,' with a 'smart-ass grin,' with a 'silly smirk.' Enough already; we get it." [1]
Charles Taylor of Newsday said, "You don't need to be sadistic or foul-mouthed to write a good thriller, but you need exactly what Grisham lacks: a taste for cunning, meanness and grit. He sets up a big showdown only to walk away from it, and so the tension just dribbles off. Worse, Grisham's country-mouse attitude toward the big, bad city - where apartments rent for thousands of dollars a month and you can't find a good $3.99 blue-plate special at the local diner - is a drag. Who wants to reach for a thriller and wind up with Frank Capra?" [4]
Lev Grossman of Time said the novel "ticks along lightly and pleasantly — it's crafted and paced with the same signature glossy perfection that makes Grisham, book for book, probably the best-selling novelist in the world. It's just that it's not about anything. In fact it's amazing that anybody could put together a book that is this compulsively readable while at the same time being almost entirely devoid of substance of any kind . . . The Associate is as close to being about nothing as a book can be — it's a masterpiece of almost ghostly narrative minimalism, a book of names without characters, a book with plot points but no plot. There's something comforting about the meaningless hindbrain tension that The Associate generates in the reader — empty tension, the kind where there's nothing genuine at stake. Comforting too is the cozy quaintness of Grisham's little world. It's supposed to be a scary place, in theory, full of brooding criminals and impossible choices, but it's really a relic of the American past, one as sentimental and archaic as a Norman Rockwell painting . . . The Associate is high-calorie comfort food, a thriller that doesn't actually thrill." [5]
Joshua Rozenberg of The Observer said, "Suffice it to say that The Associate bears many similarities to The Firm , even down to the two dust jackets, which both show shadowy young lawyers on the run. Plagiarism? No, because both books are by John Grisham. Those who believed, even for a moment, that I was suggesting impropriety will recognise this as the sort of false trail that Grisham uses to good effect . . . Though our hero believes himself to be in the clear, he goes along with the blackmailers' demands. The reader screams at him to call their bluff, but that would ruin the story. So we suspend our disbelief. Then, just as we have got used to the idea, he changes his mind and sets about trapping the blackmailers after all. And that's it. The ending is curiously flat." [6]
John Ray Grisham Jr. is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his best selling legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on the first printing.
The Rainmaker is a 1997 American legal drama film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on John Grisham's 1995 novel of the same title. It stars Matt Damon, Claire Danes, Jon Voight, Mary Kay Place, Mickey Rourke, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Roy Scheider, Virginia Madsen, and Teresa Wright in her final film role.
The Pelican Brief is a legal-suspense thriller by John Grisham, published in 1992 by Doubleday. It is his third novel after A Time to Kill and The Firm. Two paperback editions were published, both by Dell Publishing in 1993. A namesake film adaptation was released in 1993 starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.
The Client (1993) is a legal thriller written by American author John Grisham, set mostly in Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana. It is Grisham's fourth novel.
A Time to Kill is a 1989 legal thriller and debut novel by American author John Grisham. The novel was rejected by many publishers before Wynwood Press eventually gave it a 5,000-copy printing. When Doubleday published The Firm, Wynwood released a trade paperback of A Time to Kill, which became a bestseller. Dell published the mass market paperback months after the success of The Firm, bringing Grisham to widespread popularity among readers. Doubleday eventually took over the contract for A Time to Kill and released a special hardcover edition.
The Street Lawyer is a legal thriller novel by John Grisham. It was Grisham's ninth novel. The book was released in the United States on 1 January 1998, published by Bantam Books, and on 30 March 1998 in the UK, published by Century.
The Runaway Jury is a legal thriller novel written by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham's seventh novel. The hardcover first edition was published by Doubleday Books in 1996 (ISBN 0-385-47294-3). Pearson Longman released the graded reader edition in 2001 (ISBN 0-582-43405-X). The novel was published again in 2003 to coincide with the release of Runaway Jury, a movie adaptation of the novel starring Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack and Rachel Weisz. The third printing (ISBN 0-440-22147-1) bears a movie-themed cover, in place of the covers used on the first and second printings.
The Chamber (1994) is a legal thriller written by American author John Grisham. It is Grisham's fifth novel.
The Partner (1997) is a legal/thriller novel by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham's eighth novel.
The Firm is a 1991 legal thriller by American writer John Grisham. It was his second book and the first which gained wide popularity. In 1993, after selling 1.5 million copies, it was made into a namesake film starring Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, came into prominence afterwards due to this novel's success.
The Rainmaker is a 1995 novel by John Grisham, his sixth.
Law firms are a common element of fictional depictions of legal practice. In legal drama, generally, they create opportunities to depict lawyers engaged in dramatic interactions that are reflective of the real-world drama of the profession. The portrayal of law firms varies by the media in which they are presented, with law firms in novels and in films being presented in a negative light, while law firms in television series tending to be presented more positively.
The Chamber is a 1996 American legal thriller film directed by James Foley. It is based on John Grisham's 1994 novel of the same name. The film stars Chris O'Donnell, Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Lela Rochon, Robert Prosky, Raymond J. Barry, and David Marshall Grant.
The Confession is a 2010 legal thriller novel by John Grisham, his second novel to be published in 2010. The novel is about the murder of a high school cheerleader and how an innocent man was arrested for it. This was Grisham's first novel to be released simultaneously in digital and hardcopy format.
The Litigators is a 2011 legal thriller novel by John Grisham, his 25th fiction novel overall. The Litigators is about a two-partner Chicago law firm attempting to strike it rich in a class action lawsuit over a cholesterol reduction drug by a major pharmaceutical drug company. The protagonist is a Harvard Law School grad big law firm burnout who stumbles upon the boutique and joins it only to find himself litigating against his old law firm in this case. The book is regarded as more humorous than most of Grisham's prior novels.
The Racketeer is a legal thriller novel written by John Grisham that was released on October 23, 2012 by Doubleday with an initial printing of 1.5 million copies. It was one of the best selling books of 2012 and spent several weeks atop various best seller lists.
The Firm is a 1993 American legal thriller film directed by Sydney Pollack, and starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Hal Holbrook, David Strathairn and Gary Busey. The film is based on the 1991 novel The Firm by author John Grisham. The Firm was one of two films released in 1993 that were adapted from a Grisham novel, the other being The Pelican Brief.
Gray Mountain is a legal thriller novel by John Grisham, published in hardcover on October 23, 2014. The book is set in Appalachia after the Great Recession and follows third-year associate Samantha Kofer after the Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, when she becomes a legal clinic intern in Virginia's coal mining country.
Liad Shoham is an Israeli writer and lawyer. He is Israel's leading thriller writer and has been dubbed the Israeli John Grisham.
The Rooster Bar is the 25th legal thriller novel by John Grisham. Grisham was inspired to create the story after reading an article titled "The Law-School Scam" that appeared in The Atlantic magazine in 2014.