TAUT, HEAVILY PLOT-DRIVEN `PARTNER' FULL OF SURPRISES.Byline: Richard Dyer Boston Globe Title: ``The Partner'' Author: John Grisham “Grisham” redirects here. For other uses, see Grisham (disambiguation). John Ray Grisham (born February 8, 1955) is a former politician, retired attorney, American novelist and author best known for his works of modern legal drama. Data: 367 pages, Doubleday; $26.95 Our rating: Three stars Everyone is interested in Patrick Lanigan. The public is interested in him because he's the hero of John Grisham's latest best-selling best·sell·er also best seller n. A product, such as a book, that is among those sold in the largest numbers. best novel, his eighth, ``The Partner.'' A lot of other people are interested in Patrick because he has walked away with $90 million that didn't belong to him; not only has he walked away, he's disappeared. For a few days, people even thought he was dead - after all, his smashed car was found after an accident, the body inside charred beyond recognition. Patrick didn't attend his own funeral, but he did observe his own interment, watching his not-so-desolate widow from the vantage point of a nearby tree. There's some question about just who the rightful owner of the money is - a number of parties strongly believe they are entitled en·ti·tle tr.v. en·ti·tled, en·ti·tling, en·ti·tles 1. To give a name or title to. 2. To furnish with a right or claim to something: to it, if they can only find it. The crooked crook·ed adj. 1. Having or marked by bends, curves, or angles. 2. Informal Dishonest or unscrupulous; fraudulent. crook partners in the law firm where Patrick used to work are of the opinion that part of the money belongs to them. A crooked whistle-blower whis·tle·blow·er or whis·tle-blow·er or whistle blower n. One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority: "The Pentagon's most famous whistleblower is . . named Benny Aricia knows the money belongs to him. A couple of crooked insurance companies are involved, along with a crafty thug named Jack Stephano, whose job is to find Patrick and the money. The federal government also has taken an interest in the matter. Patrick is a smart guy who knows how to look out for himself. Better than that, he knows he doesn't have to look out for himself. He has a partner - actually, he has two of them. The first is a longtime long·time adj. Having existed or persisted for a long time: a longtime friend; a longtime resident of Detroit. longtime Adjective friend, Sandy McDermott, who becomes his lawyer. The second is his lover, a beautiful Brazilian named Eva Miranda, who also is a lawyer, although everyone in the book notices her legs first. Sandy shoulders a lot of the burden of a complicated plot; Eva Miranda flies all around the world, transfers millions from bank to bank, changes clothes and goes shopping when she dares. ``A gomrgeous lady, with exotic charm and class,'' Sandy thinks, with Grisham's own characteristic grace of style. Along the way there's a lot a plot to unravel. ``The Partner'' may be the most plot-driven of Grisham's books to date; the others depend more on situation and issues (the death penalty; health insurance). All of Grisham's familiar villains are back, the people America loves to hate, the slick See SLC. , smooth-tongued lawyers and the forked-tongued insurance companies. The system that protects us is fragile and corruptible, but it's all we have. A strong factual sense of how the system works was a strength of the earlier Grisham books; that element is present again, but the fantasy element continues to grow stronger - even stronger than it was in the last Grisham, ``The Runaway Jury.'' That was a fairly recondite fantasy about corrupting a jury. This story depends on a fantasy that is almost universal: If only we could get away from it all, escape completely, begin a totally new life, with a new name and enough money to do anything we wanted to. ``At some point in life,'' Patrick observes, ``everybody thinks about walking away. Life's always better on the beach or in the mountains. Problems can be left behind. It's inbred in·bred adj. 1. Produced by inbreeding. 2. Fixed in the character or disposition as if inherited; deep-seated. inbred said of offspring produced by inbreeding. in us. We're the products of immigrants who left miserable conditions and came here in search of a better life.'' Even the judge in the case envies Patrick. ``A bad day on the bench, and he would think of Patrick on a sun-drenched beach reading a novel, sipping a drink, watching the girls.'' Most of the way through ``The Partner'' Grisham keeps a firmer hand on the proceedings than he sometimes has in the past; sheer narrative momentum hurries him over the potholes in his plot. He still doesn't know how to write about women, and at points you wonder if he even knows how to write about men. ``Even her sweat was cute cute adj. cut·er, cut·est 1. Delightfully pretty or dainty. 2. Obviously contrived to charm; precious: "[He] ,'' an FBI agent thinks as he watches Patrick's ``widow'' during her aerobics aerobics (ârō`biks), [Gr.,=with oxygen], system of endurance exercises that promote cardiovascular fitness by producing and sustaining an elevated heart rate for a prolonged period of time, thereby pumping an increased amount of oxygen-rich . Grisham isn't really interested in people at all; he's interested in power. Grishamm once again indulges in some amusing coarse-grained humor humor, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was . The widow's boy-toy, ``a strong, handsome loser (jargon) loser - An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or person. Someone who habitually loses. (Even winners can lose occasionally). Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows not. ,'' learns he's a father when a grinning lawyer tosses him a cigar. New for this writer is an element of tourism. ``Home was a powerful magnet. All true Cariocas love their city, and consider it specially created by the Almighty.'' Grisham stops just short of writing that Rio is a city of exotic charm and class. On the last page, however, he springs one surprise too many, one for which readers haven't been adequately prepared. Most are going to feel annoyed and cheated. Grisham will laugh all the way to the bank. The first print order for this $26.95 novel is 2.8 million copies. Do the math - don't forget to throw in the paperback, film and foreign rights - and we're talking more than $90 million, precisely Patrick's nest egg Nest Egg A special sum of money saved or invested for one specific future purpose. Notes: Examples of the purposes for which nest eggs are usually intended include retirement, education, and even entertainment (vacations and cruises). . Patrick went to even more trouble than Grisham to get his; for his pains, at one point he suffers torture in Paraguay. He could have chosen an easier line of work. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Most of the way through ``The Partner,'' John Grisham keeps a firmer hand on the proceedings than he sometimes has in the past; sheer narrative momentum hurries him over the potholes in his plot. |
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