Product Description

At the top of his class at Harvard Law, he had  his choice of the best in America. He made a deadly  mistake. When Mitch McDeere signed on with  Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought he  and his beautiful wife, Abby, were on their way. The  firm leased him a BMW, paid off his school loans,  arranged a mortgage and hired him a decorator.  Mitch McDeere should have remembered what his brother  Ray -- doing fifteen years in a Tennessee jail --  already knew. You never get nothing for nothing.  Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch's firm and  needs his help. Mitch is caught between a rock and a  hard place, with no choice -- if he wants to live.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125017 in Books
• Published on: 1992-01-04
• Released on: 1992-01-04
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 6.85" h x 1.05" w x 4.18" l, .55 pounds
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 512 pages

From Amazon.com
Hard to believe, but there was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," and the idea of a law firm controlled by the Mafia was an outlandish proposition. This intelligent, ensnaring story came out of nowhere--Oxford, Mississippi, where Grisham was a small-town lawyer--and quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, with good reason. Mitch McDeere, the appealing hero, is a poor kid whose only assets are a first-class mind, a Harvard law degree, and a beautiful, loving wife. When a Memphis law firm makes him an offer he really can't refuse, he trades his old Nissan for a new BMW, his cramped apartment for a house in the best part of town, and puts in long hours finding tax shelters for Texans who'd rather pay a lawyer than the IRS. Nothing criminal about that. He'd be set for life, if only associates at the firm didn't have a funny habit of dying, and the FBI wasn't trying to get Mitch to turn his colleagues in. The tempo and pacing are brilliant, the thrills keep coming, and the finish has a wonderful ironic flourish. It's not hard to see why Grisham changed the genre permanently with this one, and few of his colleagues in a very crowded field come close to equaling him. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
A rookie discovers that the prestigious law firm where he works is a front for the Mafia. MC suggests addding some info along the lines of 'a surprise bestseller in hardcover...'/i think this is interesting but it goes beyond the specifications laid out by george of a very brief description of book/pk Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The aphorism "between a rock and a hard place" aptly describes the dilemma of a young attorney pressed by the FBI to reveal crime-related secrets of his firm, while also hounded by his employers to simply take his huge salary and zip his lip. No aphorism, though, can convey the suspense, wit, and polished writing of this laser-sharp candidate for the best recent updating of the David and Goliath story. What's more, it is all accomplished with just a few whiffs of the heavy duty violence and sex that kick many cops-and-robbers stories along today. Set in Tennessee, the Cayman Islands, and other southerly points, the action moves briskly, relying on character types that are quickly made likable or repulsive. The author, a Mississippi-based criminal defense lawyer, has in this first novel set a daringly high standard, one that his readers will hope he can reach again and again. Literary Guild main selection.
- Barbara Con aty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.