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Brian B

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The Associate

by John Grisham (Goodreads Author)

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 2013

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Brian B said: " "The Associate" is a suspense novel by John Grisham, centered around the predicament of Kyle McAvoy, a brilliant young lawyer whose questionable past may be catching up to him. Kyle is about to finish law school at Yale, when he is stopped and inter "The Associate" is a suspense novel by John Grisham, centered around the predicament of Kyle McAvoy, a brilliant young lawyer whose questionable past may be catching up to him. Kyle is about to finish law school at Yale, when he is stopped and interrogated by men who claim to be federal agents. They question him about a night when he was an undergrad at Duquesne University. The night in question involves an alleged rape, and the men interrogating him will use it as leverage against Kyle in their blackmail scheme. The tape shows that there is enough evidence to send Kyle and his friends Joey, Baxter, and Alan to prison. Kyle is sent against his will to the largest law firm in the country, Scully and Pershing. There, he will be forced to steal classified documents that will give the blackmailers power over a multi-billion dollar case his firm is involved in. Kyle secretly follows his blackmailers, who are trained professionals of corporate espionage, and learns as much about them as he can. He uses this information, along with help from his friend Joey and also his father, to develop a plan to double-cross his blackmailers at the end of the story.

I really enjoyed reading "The Associate". It was very fast paced, while giving excellent character descriptions at the same time. One character that is developed particularly well is the protagonist, Kyle. At the beginning of the story Kyle is characterized as being a great person, who is determined to use his intelligence to have a positive impact on the lives of others. Later on, however, more of Kyle's past is revealed, and the reader questions many of the decisions Kyle made when he was younger, as well as the way he handled the distance from his father that his secrets had created. He is able to turn it back around at the end, when he learns to turn to and trust his father and other people that are important to him. In addition to trust, some themes of the story are fear and pride. Kyle fears all of the unknowns of his situation and at the end he makes a decision to swallow his pride and accept that although he is incredibly intelligent, there will always be things that remain out of his control. "The Associate" was an excellent read, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys suspenseful novels that make it difficult to put the book down. ...more "

Jan 08, 2013 03:54PM · see review