Of all the novels that the famous author John Grisham has penned, one of my favorites remains “The Firm”. Young Mitch McDeer had just graduated from law school, and was looking for work. He and his wife Abby were dirt poor, and had nothing to speak of but an old car and a tiny apartment. So they were thrilled when a small firm in Memphis offered Mitch a position with a huge salary, a leased car for him to use, and help with a low-interest loan for a house close to work. It seemed like a dream, too good to be true. As time went on, they discovered it was too good to be true. The firm was affiliated with the Bendini mob. Mitch and Abby discovered that they were under constant surveillance, even in their own home. Former employees who had tried to leave the firm had mysteriously died. Getting in was easy, getting out was almost impossible.
The author picks up the story of Mitch and Abby McDeer in this novel. It is fifteen years later, and the mobsters are all in prison. The McDeers have moved on to a new life, and now have twin sons. Abby is an editor for a company that specializes in cook-books, and Mitch is a full partner at the huge Scully and Pershing law firm. Life is great – until Mitch is sent with a team to Libya to pressure the government there to pay what they owe to a company that built a huge bridge for them. While the team is there, the daughter of one of the associates is kidnapped by a group of terrorists for ransom. Mitch and others have the nearly impossible task of finding a way to free the young woman.
The book does include some graphic descriptions of people being executed by the terrorists, which some may find too disturbing. But it would be hard to tell a story about a hostage situation in an unfriendly country without including some brutality.
Some readers have been disappointed in the book, saying it seemed too different from “The Firm” to be a legitimate sequel. To which I would say, fifteen years have passed in the story, and the McDeers have moved on. The author actually wrote the sequel more than thirty years later, and it’s a credit to his writing ability that millions of people still remember the original book and want to read more about the McDeer characters. One thing that stayed the same was the character of Abby, as she is again given a prominent part in the storyline. In both books, Mitch and Abby work as a team in a crisis situation.
I chose the audio version of “The Exchange” over the printed version. The narrator was Edoardo Ballerini, and he did an excellent job. This was my first time listening to Mr. Ballerini read, and he was easy on the ears.
Always Reading 1 