Hope no one read this already from that "other" board.
Grisham's latest is, well, typical but for one thing.
He has joined the plethora of authors that, having established themselves, go on holiday, and then write a 'new' book based on their latest experiences, and this is the mother of their invention. One of my favorite authors started doing this 10 years ago,(Alan Dean Foster), and the resulting material usually sucks. Pity. In this case, Grisham went to Italy.
My biggest gripe about Grisham's stuff is that he has NO idea how to end a story. Tremendous writing, plot and character development, and then at the end, well......"And they all got away and lived happily ever after".
In The Broker, the setting is mostly in Italy. Bologna to be specific. A power broker lawyer in D.C. has plead guilty and is doing time for 'crimes'. Trying not to do any spoilers.
He is released and sent, with "handlers" to Italy.
Now, if I wanted to have an Italian grammar lesson, well, you know. Grisham types both in Italian and then English translations for most of the book, during the conversations between the characters. Very hard to follow a plot using that convention. Almost ruins the story.
No, to me it did.
Anyway, the international intrigue insues, and the former power broker proceeds to to try to fool his handlers, and get his life back.
I give this one a 5. It would have been a 7 without the Italian to English pages of dialogue.
The best part of the novel is the description, in GREAT detail, of the food of that region, which is called "the stomache of Italy". DANG he did a great job of making want to dive into eye-talian food and gourge myself.
Book review: The Broker
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Roger_the_Shrubber
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