After slogging my way through half of "The Appeal" before putting it down I thought that I would not read another new John Grisham novel ever again. However, I was pleasantly surprised by "The Broker". I enjoyed the story and the reader on the CD was very good. It wasn't quite the return to his glory days of The Firm and The Testament but nevertheless is was a good read. Maybe there's hope for him yet.

This book reached its destination in a reasonbile time limit. The book was in excellent shape and I got it at a very reasonable price. I will continue using Amazon because I have no trouble with orders from this company.

The Broker, although taking place in Washington at times, is not a legal thriller. Its more of a spy novel. Or is it an Italian tour guide and langauge lesson? That's where my somehwat dislike of this novel comes in. It seems a third of the tale is spent teaching both the main character and the reader Italian. Overkill doesn't begin to explain it. And that main character is somewhat hard to like given his past misdeeds. Overall, just another average read.

I have only finished reading half of the book and I couldn't continue anymore. It was a big yawn.

The first half of the book is about a middle-aged white guy who gets released early from prison with a string attached. The Feds smuggle him out of the U.S. into Italy. And I said to myself: Okay, let's fun begins. Well, wrong. Up to half of the book, that poor guy struggles to learn a new language while sightsees a new country. I don't need to see that.

So I closed the book and returned it to the library.

If they turn this book into a movie, they'd probably pack the first half of the book into a 5-minute screen time.

The more I read John Grisham's latest efforts in the legal thriller genre, the more convinced I become that he's lost interest in writing that type of book, but something has to keep the money coming in and that's what he's best known for, so he produces these offerings that come off as very half-hearted.

As Grisham novels go, I would rate this one above "The Associate" but nowhere even close to other (much earlier) favorites like "The Client". "The Broker" is a fairly interesting and entertaining read, but it bogs down -- WAY down -- in the middle due to the endless descriptions of Bologna and its statues, fountains, colonnades, towers, winding streets, statues, fountains, colonnades, towers, winding streets, statues, fountains, colonna.....well, you get the picture.

In his notes at the end of the book, John confides that he "adores" Italy and all things Italian and "adores" Bologna (yes, he used the word "adore" twice in one paragraph) and yes, John, we understand that you do. But it all seemed much more appropriate to engage in lengthy descriptions of cities, food and cultures in, say, "Playing for Pizza," which was not, as you recall, a legal thriller.

This was not a terrible book, however, and if you can make it past Bologna, it will hold your interest until the rather abrupt ending. If you're a longtime Grisham fan, it would be best to approach this book knowing that it will not have the wildfire pace of his earlier novels that scorched the eyebrows right off your face.