Thursday January 04, 2007

John Grisham - The Client

The second book of John Grishams I have now read and it reminded me of the film with Harrison Ford in it called Witness. This book has also been filmed with Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon. The book starts with a suicide of a lawyer witnessed by two young boys. Jerome Clifford acted for Barry the Blade a Mafia member who has murdered a US Senator Boyd Boyette who was campaigning against one of the Mafia's projects. The FBI can't find the body of Boyd so are missing the final bit of evidence against Barry the blade. The lawyer Jerome knows where the body is and this conspires to have him decide to kill himself. Two boys the eldest Mark and his young sibling are in the woods for Ricky's first cigarette and this leads them to witness and be part of the action leading to the suicide of Jerome.

The police eventually find out Mark and his brother were there and then suspect him of now knowing the vital piece of information. Enter Reggie played by Susan Sarandon picked by Mark at random to help him out of this deadly tug of war. Meanwhile his brother is suffering post traumatic stress in hospital with his mother. Grisham weaves an intricate story and the description of an assault on Mark in an elevator is excellent. However the best comes when Mark is in a juvenile court where the FBI are trying to get him to spill the beans. The judge Harry is really a brilliant masterpiece character. The idea of him putting the FBI upstarts into place with a line your position, Mr Fink is in that chair right there. Please sit and listen to me very carefully, because I will say this only once. And if I have to say it again, I will do so as they are putting handcuffs on you and taking you away for a night in our splendid jail. The description Mark gives of one evening of terrible abuse by his estranged father is also gripping.

Earlier in the book while being left a telephone in the youth detention prison Mark orders four hundred dollars worth of pizzas for one person in the police but this is never commented on and we do not hear of it again. The story reaches an excellent climax but the tough eleven year old child shows that he is still a child despite his grown up behaviour in this story right at the end. Worth a read. BTW who did Tommy Lee Jones play in the film?