4 Stars for the novel though the end shocked me because i liked the romantic line between Patric and Eva
It is my first reading in english for John Grisham (in general too) whose i read translated novels in arabic before (The Firm - The Client - The Street Lawyer - The Rainmaker) and it won't be the last
My detailed review is in arabic

اول قراءه دسمه باللغه الانجليزيه لروايه تعدت 400 صفحه
الحافز موجود جون جريشام اللي حمسني لقراءه المزيد من اعماله بعد استهلاك الروايات المترجمه القليله عنه واللي قدمه احمد خالد توفيق في روايات عالميه للجيب : صانع الامطار - العميل - محامي الشوارع وتكفلت مكتبه جرير السعوديه بترجمه 3 روايات اخري ليه : المؤسسه - استئناف - القاضي الاخير
خلصت الروايه بعد اسبوعين من القراءه القصيره شبه يوميه في اوقات الفراغ كنت بقرا كل يوم حوالي 3 فصول
الروايه دسمه ودي من عوامل الجذب اللي شدتني ليها ولكن .. زياده في عدد الصفحات بسبب الاستطراد وتكرار سرد الاحداث كان ممكن اختصارها الي نصف حجم الكتاب
القصه عن محامي اسمه باتريك لانيجان متزوج وعنده طفله بيشتغل في مؤسسه قانونيه فيها اربع شركاءوكان علي وشك الوصول لدرجه شريك ، المؤسسه كانت موكله من قبل عميل لرفع قضيه تعويض ضد شركه بتشتغل مع الحكومه الامريكيه بسبب فساد مالي وكسبت القضيه مقابل 90 مليون دولار تلتهم لصالح المؤسسه توزع بالتالي علي الاربعه شركاء والاتفاق كان علي تحويل المبلغ كامل في احد البنوك ثم توزيعه بين العميل والمؤسسه في الوقت اللي مات فيه باتريك متفحم في حادثه عربيه وبعد ما اتدفن وابتدي الشركاء في حساب الغنائم والاستعداد للثروه المستقبليه اكتشفو ان المبلغ 90 مليون اتحول بالكامل من البنك بحساب مزيف لاحد الشركاء وبعد فتره ابتدت الاشاعات في الشركه والمدينه بتلقي اصابع الاتهام علي باتريك وبتشكك في وفاته
تحت صدمه الافلاس بيتم الاتفاق بين العميل والمؤسسه وشركات التامين اللي بدورها دفعت مبالغ لاسره باتريك للتامين علي حياته وللمؤسسه للتامين ضد الاحتيال والسرقه علي البحث عن باتريك عن طريق شركه تحري بيديرها ضابط سابق في مكتب التحقيقات الفيدراليه وبعد 4 سنين من البحث بينجحو في الوصول لباتريك في البرازيل وخطفه وتعذيبه وبتدخل الحكومه الامريكيه في الاحداث عن طريق بلاغ من حبيبه باتريك البرازيليه وشريكته عن الاختطاف فبيتم نقله للولايات المتحده وتقديمه للمحاكمه بتهم فيدراليه الاحتيال والسرقه وتهمه القتل العمل لشخصيه القتيل المجهول في حادث السياره ويبتدي الصراع علي اكتر من محور مش هحرق الاحداث بس النهايه قفلتني رغم اني كنت شبه متوقعها

3.5

Sometimes, John Grisham gives me 'forced' endings. Sometimes, I would imagine him going:
"When's the deadline again? Holy sh*t, there's only a week left!"

or

"I'm already near my page limit, let me just squeeze everything in the last remaining pages."

or

"Let me just finish these in 2 chapters so I could go back to *insert hobby/party/gathering/person here*"

Quite juvenile thoughts for a well-published writter but just humor me here okay.

That being said, this is the first John Grisham book that didn't feel like he was simply trying to end the story in a few pages or so and trying to tie whatever loose ends in whatever way possible. I didn't expect the ending too and made me go "Oh."

It is because of books like this Mr. Grisham (or would you prefer John?) that makes me want to pull your book out of anyone's bookshelf if I just want to pass the time.

Now, would you be kind enough sir and tell me what happened?
Was she kidnapped?
Or simply ran away?
I have think Stephano got her.
Maybe this is her way of making Patrick pay.

Am I suppose to loose sleep now?

I picked this book for a light, easy read (which it was) after some heavier reading and I did enjoy it and it kept me occupied. Until the very end, and then I no longer liked it. Why end a perfectly good read like that? I don’t get the point of it.

Wow! It’s been 20+ years since I read a John Grisham book, and I had forgotten how his books just suck you in and don’t let go of you until you’re finished. As others have stated, the ending was disappointing, but I still give this one 5 ⭐️.

Really enjoyed this book, but hated the twist. I didn't believe the u-turn by a major character, to whose thoughts we'd been given access throughout the book. Also what she did doesn't make any sense: she could have easily split the money with him and still been rich without condemning herself to a lifetime on the run. I'd believe this far more if it was hinted that she had conspired with Stephano in order to grab a bigger share of the loot. But there was no evidence of that. I suspect the author threw this twist in late in the day to spice things up, but it spoiled the story for me, which ended on a sour note. Still love the writing though, and despite this misstep I liked the book overall.

Gute Story, Grisham meets Leonard, jedenfalls hätte der Stoff das Potenzial dazu gehabt. Leider verfügt der Großmeister der politisch korrekten Gerichtskrimis weder über Erzählwitz noch über ausreichende Fähigkeiten bei der Charaktergestaltung für ein derartiges Unterfangen. Eine ganz nette Lektüre, so lange man nicht an das verschenkte Potenzial denkt.

John Grisham is beginning to be one of my favourites, yet again this wasn’t a disappointment, a great crime book with a twist and definitely my favourite book so far

Disappointing book. It has the requisite guilty pleasure moments of bad guys getting their comeuppances and a smart main character bobbing and weaving his way around the system, but Grisham also makes an attempt at a morality play and this portion of the book never seems fully fleshed out.

The fun and strength of the book comes from the detailed telling of Patrick Lanigan faking his death and stealing a large sum of money in one fell swoop. The telling is mostly done through Lanigan recounting his exploits to friends and associates and this seems to dull the action and tension a bit, as it is limited to his point of view. Lanigan comes off as a bit too omniscient having taken everything into account from the get go and planning accordingly. Save for his incarceration and treatment at the beginning, he doesn't seem to go through any significant trials.

The major shortcoming of the book stems from the supposed guilt that Lanigan should feel for his actions and the people he affected through those actions. It is brought up, nominally discussed, then stops short. There is a debate of whether the ends justify the means, but only peripherally. There are several characters who question the integrity of Lanigan's actions and its effect on the justice system, but none of them seem to pursue it with any vigor. It's as if they just let Lanigan be Lanigan; they are in awe of him to do or say anything substantive. The book tosses out its own version of karma and it is supposed to be ironic, but these karmic moments wrap themselves up a little too neatly and just comes off disappointing the reader; there is not enough balance.

Lawyer and critical thinker Patrick Lanigan almost got away with it; he faked his death and stole 90 million dollars from his own law firm that he was a 'partner' in. The money was from a deal in which essentially an organised crime lord defrauded the US Government. The faked death cover included an unidentified corpse in his car wreck, so a murder charge was also raised when Patrick Lanigan, living the good life in Brazil was finally caught! As the criminals, FBI, press, courts and his one-time widowed wife all gun for him, Patrick tries to work through his meticulously put together plan of seeing if he and his Brazilian female lawyer confidante can find a way out to free them from all of his antagonists.

I really enjoyed this Grisham jam as I love a detailed plan and execution of said plan. This one's a doozy and would make a great TV series. Like most of his early books this is set in the Grisham universe where the FBI and its head Haynes are the common factor. This is clever battle of wills and law between a well researched lawyer and multiple personal interests and is yet another Grisham tale of effectively an individual fighting the system and doing it with some aplomb. A firm (no pun intended) 8 out of 12, Four Star read,

2024 read

John Grisham has a curious way of drawing out courtroom fact, dramatic fiction, and credible dialog among compelling characters into entertaining legal page-turners. Unfortunately, Grisham's 1997 "The Partner" pulls together these elements among an only marginally interesting core of characters, all revolving around the capture and peculiar justice visited upon a presumed-dead partner in a Biloxi, Mississippi law firm.

"The Partner" focuses on Patrick Lanigan, an attorney who fakes his own death, heists $90 million from his law firm, and skips the country. After four years on the run, he's caught, and returned to the States presumably to face the consequences for his actions, yet he returns too prepared. Grisham works hard to make Lanigan into a sympathetic character, but the result leaves the reader among a bevy of characters that range from the irrelevant to the downright unpleasant, woven together by a narrative that slides too often into the tedious. One could almost argue that Grisham, amid writing "The Partner," realized Lanigan's one-dimensional, only marginally likable nature, and supplanted the novel with other, more sympathetic characters to compensate.

As the novel's central character, Lanigan is the one on whom the entire story pivots. We must find a reason to care about what happens to him, yet the plot reveals a so thoroughly calculated character that we discover little of what happens to be much of a surprise. As a result, the character study becomes secondary to an exposition of the mechanics of a grand scam, with the drama and conflict virtually non-existent. The rest of "The Partner" borders on filler; attorneys talking to attorneys, investigators probing suspects, with seemingly every character holding a limitless supply of "secret files" on everyone else. While the material fills in the necessary blanks, the reader realizes there was no moral epiphany, no shocking surprise, no resonating arc that allows the "blanks" to make sense. Blanks, to be sure, are filled - but that's all.

Contrasted against stories with much more richly drawn characters, such as Grisham's classic "The Firm," "The Partner" leaves the reader barely interested in how its main character acts. Most of Lanigan's life decisions are viewed only in retrospect, his conflicts viewed in the narrative as having been resolved outside the timespan of the novel's reality. We see only end-game. A more compelling version of "The Partner" could have been written in a story chronicling the meticulous planning of his original disappearance, and the detail behind the motivations that drove it. In a way, "The Partner" is a story about a novel not written.

Those who have read "The Partner" surely know its final page twist that presumably serves as the ultimate ironic end game for Lanigan's character. We won't go into that ending here, but it is safe to say that very ending is so departed from the way Grisham has drawn the particular characters involved that the shock of the twist is quickly offset by the realization of its own absurdity.

"The Partner" isn't a wholly bad Grisham novel; it contains the requisite complex plotting and the attention to legal details that pay homage to his tradition in the genre. The disappointment comes in the realization that, once the final page is turned, the drama, tension, and intrigue that have made his prior works so compelling are simply non-existent. With its focus on a story told almost entirely in retrospect if not flashback, and its odd last-page twist, "The Partner" cannot help but be termed a disappointment.

This is not one of the best Grisham books, but there is enough suspense and drama to make it worth reading. I don't think it has been made into a movie yet although there may be a TV series pending...

A man is hiding out in Brazil under an assumed identity. Four years before he had been a partner in a successful law firm in America. By all accounts he was happily married and adored his daughter. But then, he had died in a car accident. Shortly afterwards ninety million dollars had disappeared from a client.....It's only a matter of time before the man is found and positively identified, but who will get to him first?

It's difficult to come up with the moral of this story without ruining the plot for those who have yet to read it. One obvious lesson is that living on the run from the law or running away from your past is no fun and will eventually catch up with you. This applies across the board.

God has created us with a conscience and knowledge of right and wrong. If we persistently sin, our conscience may become dulled but there will be a nagging feeling that something is not quite right. We cannot escape it. The Partner is a good illustration of this truth--the man is always looking over his shoulder and waiting for the inevitable. He cannot relax and enjoy the things he has acquired. We know too, that those who evade justice in this life will face the ultimate Judge in the next. The One who judges perfectly according to His law all those who have not trusted Jesus for their salvation. This book also reminds us that relationships are more valuable than possessions.

There is some mild swearing. There is no sexual content apart from some references to nudity. There is some graphic violence including torture scenes which will upset some. Grisham fans may enjoy this, I doubt anyone could have predicted the ending!

Check out my John Grisham Shelf!