Book Review/The Associate
The Associate By BILL DUNCAN As a media book reviewer, I often receive pre-publication copies of books called Advance Reader Copies. This is a publisher’s ploy to get advance reviews on upcoming books. Currents, as published in The News-Review, is too far down in the media hierocracy for consideration for John Grisham’s latest legal thriller, “The Associate.” I bought my own copy on the day of its release, January 27. What you can take out of that explanation is that this is an honest review. No freebie involved. I say that because many of the big boys in the media panned Grisham’s latest work, so much so that Doubleday produced a new dust cover for the book before it was released after one national reviewer working from an advance copy said not only was it the same plot as his earlier best seller, “The Firm,” but even the dust cover was similar. The big boys are supposed to be expert literary critics. I’m just reader. “The Associate,” is vintage Grisham and written in Grisham fast moving style with believable, conversational dialog. I don’t buy the criticism that it is a rewrite of “The Firm,” nor that Grisham is a self-plagiarist, as one reviewer said. In “The Associate,” Kyle McAvoy is a brilliant law student ready to graduate from Yale who is approached by thugs posing as FBI agents who blackmail him with a phone video of a drunken orgy in a college apartment during his undergraduate years. A girl has claimed she was raped. The blackmailers claim an indictment is being prepared against McAvoy and his fraternity brothers in the rape case, but offer him a way out if he will accepted a $200,000 a year offer as an associate with the world’s largest law firm in New York City. He will then need to supply the thugs with inside information on one of the law firm’s clients. 
By John Grisham
Doubleday
Hardcover $27.95
The News-Review