Product Description

It's a deadly game of blackmail. And they're making him play. Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he's good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life. One night that secret catches up with him in the form of some bad men in a dark alley - they have a deeply compromising video of the incident that haunts him. The men make it clear to Kyle that he no longer owns his own future - that he must do as they tell him, or the video will be made public knowledge, with all the unpleasant consequences. What price do they demand for Kyle's secret?Strangely, it is for Kyle to do exactly what any ambitious young lawyer would want to do: take a job in New York as an associate at the largest law firm in the world, a job that is incredibly well paid and, with mammoth hours and outrageous billing, could lead to partnership and a fortune. But Kyle won't be working for the company, but against it - passing on the secrets of the company's biggest trial to date, a dispute between two defense contractors worth billions of dollars to the victor. Now Kyle is caught between the criminal forces manipulating him and the FBI, who would love to unmask the conspiracy. Will his intellect, cunning and bravery be enough to extricate him from an impossible dilemma? Full of twists and turns and reminiscent of "The Firm", "The Associate" is vintage John Grisham.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6470 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-27
• Released on: 2009-01-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

From the Inside Flap
It’s a deadly game of blackmail. And they’re making him play.

Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he’s good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life.

One night that secret catches up with him in the form of some bad men in a dark alley -- they have a deeply compromising video of the incident that haunts him. The men make it clear to Kyle that he no longer owns his own future -- that he must do as they tell him, or the video will be made public knowledge, with all the unpleasant consequences.

What price do they demand for Kyle’s secret? Strangely, it is for Kyle to do exactly what any ambitious young lawyer would want to do: take a job in New York as an associate at the largest law firm in the world , a job that is incredibly well paid and, with mammoth hours and outrageous billing, could lead to partnership and a fortune.

But Kyle won’t be working for the company, but against it -- passing on the secrets of the company’s biggest trial to date, a dispute between two defense contractors worth billions of dollars to the victor. Now Kyle is caught between the criminal forces manipulating him and the FBI, who would love to unmask the conspiracy. Will his intellect, cunning and bravery be enough to extricate him from an impossible dilemma?

Full of twists and turns and reminiscent of The Firm, The Associate is vintage John Grisham.

About the Author
John Grisham has written twenty previous novels and one work of nonfiction, The Innocent Man, published in 2006. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi.

Customer Reviews

The Associate Part 1, or I hope a sequel is planned!!
This latest book by JG is very much 'The Firm'-lite insofar as a newly qualified law graduate (Kyle McAvoy) passes the bar exam and gets involved in shady dealings within a law firm. The difference here is it's not the firm that's dodgy, but the people Kyle's dealing with outside of it.

I've read several tautly-written thrillers where absolutely EVERY word counts and to expunge a single one would diminish the book. Not so with 'The Associate' where you could literally remove 100+ pages with zero effect on the plot! But, as almost always with Grisham, it's still very slickly written and entertaining despite the padding.

Now, at this stage I would award the novel three stars were it not for the ending - because the author forgot to include one! I was reading on excitedly for the last thirty pages wondering how JG was possibly going to tie everything up... when it just petered out. Nothing is resolved and if a sequel isn't on the cards then it should be.

Overall this is a fairly enjoyable shaggy dog story, but John is capable of much better than this.

Living death in the legal department.
The last 10 chapters are missing....unless I'm missing something. This is the first John Grisham I've read and I gather from the other reviews that it isn't his best. It's well written and is a page turner but (and it's a big but) I got to the end and wondered where the final chapters were. There's no resolution of who did what and why - I felt really let down. The frustrating thing about it being unfinished is that it didn't need to be. I'm thinking about emailing Mr.G to ask if he'd like me to complete it so he can put the ending up on his website FOC.

A real let down
I'm a huge JG fan but this book was a real let down. The story is repetitive as if he's struggling to fill the pages, its longwinded because it takes so long to move the weak plot forward. The character descriptions are good and you do feel you get to know the characters, but overall its a huge let down. The blurb says its full if twists and turns... strongly disagree on this ... there are more twists and turns on a ruler than in this book.

Save your money .. use your local library for this one . You have been warned twice now.