The Partner
by John Grisham
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Book Summary Information
Author: John GrishamEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-01-07
ISBN: 0440224764
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of The Partner
Book Review: Tom G
Summary: 3 Stars
This was a perfect read for a few days on the beach. As many of the other reviewers state, there are pros and cons to the book.
The book was very riveting from the beginning. Grisham does a good job painting characters and developing them so you like them, often in spite of yourself.
Lanigan is introduced as a man who faked his death in a car accident, stole money from his firm and fled to Brazil for a new life. Somehow, and I'm not sure how, Grisham got you liking and rooting for the guy from the get-go. I kept thinking things like:
"But he left his wife and child?"
"He stole money from a client and his partners?"
"What about that body in the car?"
You like Lanigan because you are sure that as the story unfolds, those things will be explained and somehow Lanigan will NOT be the bad guy it seems he is. The anticipation of the resolution of those issues, and how he plans to "free himself" (because he obviously has a plan) made it VERY hard to put the book down. I was definitely into it.
I said I enjoyed 95% of the book...the ending was kind of unsatisfactory. All of the above questions were resolved, but they were done so with a lot of things that were unbelievable or patently absurd.
(**SPOILERS below**)
Also, Grisham spends so much time and effort making things "work out" for Lanigan, he kind of takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster. Endings don't have to be happy, but I felt the ending was unnecessarily emotionally violent (if you get my drift). To explain, Grisham finally resolves the issues and you start to feel good because you are finally "allowed" to unashamedly like Patrick Lanigan. No sooner do you start to look forward to his sailing off into the sunset, Grisham rips the rug out from under you and screws Patrick in the end. I can like a good tragedy. I can appreciate an unhappy ending that makes you think. This book doesn't seem to be any of that. It just seemed like a waste of emotional effort.
Maybe I'm missing something, but here are examples of some of the things in the "working out" that I felt were ridiculous (WARNING SPOILERS):
- Lanigan was supposedly spent a year developing his "skills", which included vanishing himself without a trace, making money vanish without a trace, learning another language, etc. He mentioned in the book that he wanted to run away even if he didn't have millions of bucks, but without stealing a bunch of money, all of those skills were totally unnecessary. If you want to leave your wife and kids and go tend bar somewhere and live like a bum, you don't need crack criminal skills. It just so happened that an opportunity to steal $90MM came out of the sky? It seems to me that he began developing his "skills" way before it would be apparent he would have use for them.
- It seemed having a body to fake his death was necessary. It just so happened that his old friend kicks the bucket just prior to his primo opportunity to embezzle tons of funds? That's an amazing coincidence. It never mentioned a "back up plan" to kill himself, did it? And, is it reasonable to assume that no one is going to open that casket and catch you stealing the corpse (he was the only one there who may have taken it!)?
- If this guy was SO smart, I can't believe he would be so stupid as to place $140ishMM in the hands of someone who could so easily sell him out in the end (I saw this coming).
- Assuming your wife will drop all lawsuits against you (and potentially forfeiting her claim to millions of dollars in joint assets, plus who knows what in pain and suffering) because you have some naked pictures of her seems unreasonable. His wife didn't seem like they type who WOULDN'T trade a little public embarrassment for big $$$.
- If the chick stole his ~$30MM, why didn't she bolt with the money when there was $140ishMM? She hung around to give $90MM back?
- I found the fact that he basically "turned himself in" by tipping off the investigators to his whereabouts totally ridiculous. If the guy managed to live on the lam for 4 years and knew they were on his tail, he surely could have picked himself up and disappeared again. Doing that every now and then CERTAINLY seems safer than turning yourself in, risking you won't be killed, risking that everything in your amazingly complex legal plan works, and having to rely on another individual not to steal $100+MM from you (*cough*), etc, etc.
** END OF SPOILERS**
Well, those are my complaints. I can live with most of them, even though the sum total makes it a bit ridiculous. So, take it for what it's worth. You'll have a good time reading the book, but probably find yourself a little hollow feeling at the end.
Summary of The Partner
They hired him. They trusted him. Now they don't want justice--they want revenge....For four years, Patrick had often wondered how it would feel if they caught him.
Now he was terror-stricken. Practically naked and strapped down like an animal, he knew the next few hours would be insufferable....
Once he was a well-liked, well-paid young partner in a thriving Mississippi law firm. Then Patrick Lanigan stole ninety million dollars from his own firm--and ran for his life. For four years, he evaded men who were rich, powerful, and would stop at nothing to find him. Then, inevitably, on the edge of the Brazilian jungle, they finally tracked him down.
Now Patrick is coming home. And in the Mississippi city where it all began, an extraordinary trial is about to begin. As prosecutors circle like sharks, as Patrick's lawyer prepares his defense, as Patrick's lover prays for his deliverance and his former partners wait for their revenge, another story is about to emerge. Because Patrick Lanigan, the most reviled white-collar criminal of his time, knows something that no one else in the world knows.
He knows the truth....
Literary slugger John Grisham returns with a story about-- surprise!--a lawyer in trouble. Patrick Lanigan had been a young partner in a prominent Southern law firm. He had a beautiful wife, a new baby girl, and a bright future. Then one winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car; the casket they buried held nothing but ashes.
A short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial then fled. A fortune was stolen from his ex-firm's offshore account. And Patrick ran, covering his tracks the whole way.
But, now, they've found him.
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