The Broker | John Grisham | low-key suspense

The Broker | John Grisham | Fine as far as it goes

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The Broker

	The Broker John Grisham Delta, 2006 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 577 reviews view larger image
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low-key suspense

Joel Backman is "the Broker"--a Washington power broker-lobbyist. Then his empire collapses when a deal collapses involving a hacked spy satellite that nobody acknowledges, and Backman ends up in jail, broke.

Six years later, he's pardoned by a lame duck President, and whisked away to Italy by the CIA. Everyone's after him, including the CIA, though they're more interesting in finding out who kills him than in either killing him themselves or keeping him safe.

So Backman is completely out of his element, under constant surveillance, and kept deliberately short of money and paperwork so he can't run far, even if he tries. But he didn't get to be "the Broker" by being stupid, either.

This was a fairly low-key suspense book, but I enjoyed the transformation from wealthy cold-hearted power broker to someone who's dependent on others for everything, and who's learning to reevaluate his priorities. It was also quite lovely to revisit Italy.

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Fine as far as it goes

I'm not an avid reader of Grisham's - I might have read a couple of his early books in high school - so I can't really measure this against previous work. As a suspense/thriller type book, it's fine as far as it goes. The plot isn't terribly complicated and it is difficult to get very involved...at the end of the book, I was left with a feeling of, well, not much. Still, it is a fun read and has inspired me to visit Bologna!

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