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SUJECT: The story is about a young lawyer, who thinks that his first job as lawyer, is just perfect. But with the time he realised that he brought himself and hise wife into deep troubles.
SUMMARY:
This story is set in 1985, although it was written in 1981. John Grisham tells us a story of the Mafia and a young student out of law school who could have any firm in the country but choose lowly Bendini, Lambert and Locke.
This man is Mitchell McDeere, who is at the top of his class at Harvard Law and so he has his choice of the best in America. He has got three job offers and decides to take the one of a well-paying firm in Memphis. But unfortunately this should become a deadly mistake.
When Mitch McDeere signs on with Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thinks he and his wife, Abby, are finally on their way. The firm leases him a BMW, pays off his school loans, arranges a mortgage and hires him a decorator. He ignores the fact that five lawyers died over a period of 15 years. Mitch McDeere should have better remembered what his brother Ray - sitting since fifteen years in a Tennessee jail - already knew. You never get nothing for nothing.
So Mitchell McDeere finds out the Firm is owned by the most powerful Mob family in Chicago, and that they are laundering big sums of money through dummy corporations around the world. Before long he stumbles upon a secret that could bring every member of the firm, including himself, in jail. After talking with the FBI, who tells him among other things that his home phone was bugged and that there also are bugs in his car, in his home, even in the bedroom and that the firm has killed the lawyers and that they are killing everybody who does not want to work with them, Mitch still does not want to believe it.
His wife, Abby, wants him to leave the firm because it will make him a wreck, due to the fact that he works about 90 hours a week in order to become a partner as soon as possible. Eddie Lomax, a friend of Mitch`s brother Ray, who is in prison, who is hired by Mitch to investigate into the case of the dead lawyers, also advises Mitch to leave the firm. But only some hours after the conversation Eddie is killed. Eddie`s secretary, Tammy Hemphill, understands the real situation and meets Mitch. Also the FBI contacts Mitch again. They want him to copy all illegal files of the firm. They \"promise\" to take him to prison, if he would not co-operate,. If he agrees to co-operate he will get 2.000.000$, a new identity for him and his wife and the FBI would help Ray to escape from prison. Now McDeere realises that he is trapped and cannot escape without risk. So he has two choices: 1. He can obtain incriminating evidence against his co-workers, turn it in to the FBI, and avoid jail. If he does this, however, he can be killed by clients of the firm, the Mafia. 2. McDeere can avoid the FBI, work at the firm, and live a prosperous life, only to be arrested at some point in the future and serve a lengthy jail sentence. McDeere is faced with a tough decision, and after he decides, he must face the consequences. Mitch is caught between a rock and a hard place, with no choice -- if he wants to live.
As Tammy promises to help him, and as he finds a way not to break his professional discretion, he decides to work for the FBI. So he takes every file out of the building, and Tammy assists him. At one point he takes them with him to a wrong client, Frank Mulholland, and Tammy copies them in the neighbouring office. Another time Tammy plays a prostitute in Cayman and steals the office keys from Avery Tolleson. So they find a lot of different ways to copy the files. Also his wife Abby helps them.
But then the firm finds a leak in the FBI: \"Alfred\", an FBI man who betrays Mitch. Because of this leak Mitch decides to take the money, his wife, and his brother and to escape without telling the FBI where he is going. While he is fleeing he sends the files to the FBI: So the FBI and the Mafia are searching for the three McDeeres, who are hidden in Andi`s Hotel. Then Ray notices a woman who follows them and holds her up. So they have to escape from the police as well. They kill a Mafia man, who wants to kill the McDeeres and escape at the end on a boat - like in nearly every novel: There is a Happy-Ending!
CHARACTERS:
Mitchell McDeere: young lawyer
Abby McDeere: his wife
Avery Tolleson: one of the managers
A FBI agent
PERSONAL OPINION:
John Grisham has written with The Firm one of the most intense legal thrillers of our time.
It is simply a great book, another spectacular blockbuster, but certainly not without its flaws. I found it lagged a little at the beginning, but I cannot regard that as a setback. Most thrillers take a while to build up, after all. The first chapters certainly were good, as they established character and mood, and set me up for surprises. Once the conflict was established, I could not put down the book; it became a real page-turner! This book, the firm, holds you on suspense... until about the middle of the book, where you realise what will happen. The code names and the delaying of information does make the book a bit more interesting. Of course the idea of having a law firm as a front for the Mafia where once you get in you cannot get out - alive, was extremely entertaining. The book brings out the reality of corruption in some law firms that look too good to be true.
But, when I read The Firm, I noticed a very large similarity to The Client. Maybe it was even a mixture of The Pelican Brief and The Client. It has The Pelican Brief`s runaway, chase, know-something-wrong plot and it has The Client`s know-too-much plot and it`s suspense.
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