The Firm

⚖The case for it

The trap is the good part: a BMW, a subsidised mortgage, a clothing allowance and early retirement, all handed to a poor kid from Kentucky before anybody mentions what the firm actually does. Readers call the plotting “well-plotted, meticulous with details,” with a second half that turns where they did not expect. The short chapters and cliffhangers make it “a cracking good read.” Mitch is “both sympathetic and flawed” rather than clean. Longtime Grisham readers rank it his peak, crediting “Grisham’s passion and enthusiasm for the story” before the later books went flat.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Women are introduced by their bodies and never given an inside, which readers call “dripping with the grossest sexism,” and one flags racism sitting in the narration rather than only in period dialogue. An early infidelity thread gets raised and then “never addressed for the rest of the novel,” which is convenient for a plot resting on trust. The prose is padded, with one reader finding it “absolutely laughably bad.” It is also “barely a legal thriller” for the label it carries, and readers call this “the biggest drop off between his first novel and this one.”

— the honest librarian

10h

honest hours

14

sittings