The Exchange: After the Firm by John Grisham

 Apparently, Mitch McDeere, the protagonist of The Firm (1991), was not finished with author John Grisham as The Exchange: After the Firm is Grisham’s latest legal thriller coming out October 17. This novel answers the question about what became of Mitch and his wife Abby after they revealed that Mitch’s law firm, Bendini, Lambert & Locke, in Memphis was corrupt.

 

The story picks up 15 years later with Mitch and his family – now including twin boys: Clark and Carter – living in Manhattan where Mitch has become a partner in the world’s largest law firm, Scully & Pershing, and Abby is a cookbook editor.

An Italian colleague in Rome, Luca Sandroni, has requested Mitch’s assistance in  dealing with a situation in Libya involving Lannak, a Turkish construction company that has not received full payment for a bridge it constructed for none other than Colonel Gaddafi. Sandroni’s health is failing, and he would like Mitch to partner with his lawyer daughter Giovanna in the London office in hopes this experience would help boost her career.

When Mitch and Giovanna go to Libya to see the bridge to determine for themselves the situation at hand, things go terribly wrong, putting Mitch right back into a situation that endangers not only himself but his family, friends, and colleagues. A kidnapping occurs requiring a hefty exchange of money  that no single entity could cover. The enemy proves to be ruthless killers with a penchant for WARNING: violence and gore.

The end of the tale leaves one to wonder, will there be a Firm volume 3?

 John Grisham made a name for himself with his very first  novel, A Time to Kill (1989), followed by other court procedural novels that made him king of the modern legal thriller. Having worked 60+ hour weeks in a Mississippi law practice, Grisham knows what he’s talking about.