Title: The Exchange: After the Firm
Author: John Grisham
Year published: 2023
Category: Adult fiction (thriller)
Pages: 352 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (TN, NY), Italy, Libya, Turkey
Summary: What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? The answer is in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm, the blockbuster thriller that launched the career of America’s favorite storyteller. It is now fifteen years later, and Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan, where Mitch is a partner at the largest law firm in the world. When a mentor in Rome asks him for a favor that will take him far from home, Mitch finds himself at the center of a sinister plot that has worldwide implications—and once again endangers his colleagues, friends, and family. Mitch has become a master at staying one step ahead of his adversaries, but this time there’s nowhere to hide.
Review: I remember reading The Firm and really enjoying it, getting pulled into the story from the first pages. All these years later and we have a sequel? Yes please! I can always rely on Grisham for an engrossing read (see my reviews of Grisham books I've read since I started bloggin: The Boys from Biloxi; Camino Island; Gray Mountain; The Guardians; The Litigators; The Racketeer; The Reckoning; Rogue Lawyer; Rooster Bar; Sooley; Sycamore Row; A Time for Mercy; The Whistler)
Like it's predecessor, I was into this book from page one. Mitch and Abbey are likable characters whom I want to be successful while the "bad guys" are easy to dislike. The outside-the-US locations are always a lure to me so this is also a successful part of the book. I do have one quibble: it's easy to choose a Muslim country/Arabs as your terrorists. However, Grisham usually has big money or US corporations as the bad guys so I'll let him have this one.
There are a lot of characters and moving parts in this novel, though that is often true with Grisham's novel. The tension builds well as the hostage crisis comes to a head: will they get the ransom money in time? Will the hostage be killed? And this brings me to a non-literature question. If kidnappers want money, why would they kill the hostage if they don't get the money on time. Doing that means they will get nothing. I don't get it.
If you enjoy Grisham novels, especially The Firm, you'll enjoy this one and it's fun to have the old characters back again.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Alphabet (Author)--G
- Cloak and Dagger
- Literary Escapes--Italy, Lybia, Turkey
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