Rating: 
Summary: Not Impressed
Review: Having read a number of John Grisham books I found that they were all getting a bit samey and I don't even know why I started to read this one.Now that I have read this book I wish I hadn't bothered and actually feel that I wasted the first few days of my holiday in reading it. This book is really quite dire. Whereas all good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, this story is just a four hundred page long ending. This makes the book quite tiring to read! I only finished reading 'The Partner' because I always finish what I start and I have given it 1 star out of five as I can't give it none.
Rating: 
Summary: 2 Clever
Review: Great entertainment for the first three quarters; then Patrick's "failure proof" planning begins to get annoying-something should go wrong here and there. The international banking, spycraft, the legal maneuvers, etc. are wild and exciting-I don't know if it's "authentic", but Grisham makes it read wonderfully. The ending is strictly amateur night. It's like someone said, "we need a twist here" and the author tacked one on-it pretty much ruined the reading experience for me.
Rating: 
Summary: The Partner
Review: This is a good book that will keep your interest. Not on par with Grisham's best novel, The Firm, but still enjoyable. The one flaw in the book comes with the ending. I'm still not sure why the book ends the way it does or what it adds to the story. Cut the last few pages out and it's a five star book.
Rating: 
Summary: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemas?
Review: Grisham's work keeps getting better and better. As lawyers-turned-authors go (and you could name any "professional" who leaves their former careers to write fiction), Grisham is in my opinion, THE best of the lot. The Partner focuses on Patrick Lanigan, an attorney in a small partnership in the South. Patrick builds a house of cards with deft sleight of hand, absconding with $90 million of the firm's money that he knows the firm was going to collect for a fraudulent case. Patrick disappears for four years, while the firm hunts him down, never seeming to get any closer to him or leave any trace of where he has gone to next. Strangely enough, as clever as he has been, his pursuers finally manage to find him in a small Brazilian town, and after capturing him, begin to torture him slowly to make him reveal where the money went. Patrick safeguards himself through his attorney and lover, leaving the details of the money's whereabouts and transfers to her. Despite his legal acumen and planning/foresight, this proves to be Patrick's undoing in the end, but I won't spoil your reading by giving away much more than that... All in all, this is one of Grisham's best novels, a very intense and gripping tale of dishonesty at many levels. Grisham subtly suggests that although a person may "win", crime does NOT pay, even if what you do is significantly more righteous (or less dishonest, as the case may be) than someone else. Be prepared to burn the midnight oil on this one! Peace out.
Rating:
Summary: The Partner is a Hit
Review: I have read every Grisham book and this is my favorite. The story has quite a bit of action which makes the book very difficult to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: Grisham Gropes
Review: Well, as a fan of John Grisham, it is difficult for me to find the negatives in his work. However, in "The Partner", I found myself floundering to continue reading. And I do believe Grisham is now groping to keep up with the high demand for his books. The plot seemed like a "plug & play" device. Lawyer, Patrick Lanigan steals millions from his huge law firm. His troubles really begin when they find him in Brazil, living a quiet life as Danilo Silva. This is quasi so-so read, but nothing compared to Grisham's first, "A Time To Kill". Thanks--CDS
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining schlock, with a dull thud at the end
Review: As is made clear early on, Pat Lanigan, Grisham's protagonist here, stole $90 million from his law firm and their well-connected client 4 years ago and hid in Brazil. But now everyone has caught up with him. First, the thugs working for the client and the stung insurers. Then, the FBI. He gets sued for divorce, his unhappy wife's lover may put a contract on him, he is facing a federal fraud rap, but that's the least of it: he is facing prison and/or death in Mississippi on a homicide charge - who was that poor sap whose body was found in the blazing car wreck, if it wasn't Lanigan? While his Brazilian lover tries to move the money around fast enough to keep it ahead of the pursuers, the apparently multiply doomed Lanigan, from his heavily guarded room in a military hospital, begins playing his own cards. One after another. After another... Well, it's entertaining to see someone who has planned as well as Lanigan play his cards, but after a while it's not suspenseful. And I have to say that the writing really flags during the last half of the book, as the stories get told more than once, as Lanigan recounts 'what really happened', as you are told what is going to happen, and then told when it happens, and as you figure out exactly how this is all going to wind up. Well, almost exactly. There is a surprise twist at the end which comes out of the blue, and which no reader has liked or will like. So the net effect is: you get interested for a while, then somewhat numbed, and then someone hits you. There is a lot of stuff out there that will interest you more and not hit you at the end.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Grisham
Review: I listened to the tape, which, like all Grisham books on tape, was excellent except for the ending. I didn't really get it. I think the "escape from reality" idea is very attractive and as usual Grisham weaves characters and plots very effectively. This would be a good tape for kids over 12/13 and does grab and keep your attention.
Rating:
Summary: Literary vomit
Review: I can't believe that I read this book! I feel like I chopped a few hours off of my life. Its not that Grisham can't write, he has a definite knack for story-telling, but it seems he's more interested in trying to be clever. I was so unhappy that I took the time to read this book that I would honestly call it the worst book I've ever read. Yuck! The only reason that I kept reading it was because I always "hoped" it would start to pick up. Its like watching a bad movie on a rainy day just because you can't believe it won't get better. This not only doesn't get better, it falls into an abyss at the end. Instead of buying this book, tear up seven dollars and bang your head with a hammer - its the same effect and at least it will save you time.
Rating:
Summary: "To Tell The Truth? "
Review: Quite a few years ago, there was a television show called "To Tell the Truth" in which a celebrity panel, egged on by a celebrity moderator, would try to guess which of three guest panelists, when quizzed about their lives and circumstances, would turn out to be the actual named person. The game always ended in the command "Will the real 'John Doe' please stand up", at which point our suspense was relieved and we all got to congratulate or commiserate on our own candidate of choice. And so with our now famous author, some times I feel like saying "Will the real John Grisham please stand up." In Partner, this is not (to my mind, thankfully) the slow-paced dramatist of book one, A Time to Kill, or book five, The Chamber, the latter of which I predicted would never be a movie (wrong!) for its dullness and lack of intrigue (right!). Nor is this the social commentator proselytizing in The Rainmaker (wife abuse is bad) or The Runaway Jury (smoking is bad), although at least these two gave us moderately satisfying page-turners. Nope -- the good news is that our clever creator of Pelican Brief, The Client, and The Firm is back, with all the complexities of plot, action and thrills, even an ironic twist at the end, to captivate our imaginations and keep us up until three in the morning with no regrets. And make no mistake, this movie will be a barn burner -- the only question being how many millions more will it dump into the Grisham coffers. By now, you may have heard snatches of the plot. I hate to spoil the story, but the gist is that a successful young law firm partner "dies" in an accident, only to be discovered years later hiding abroad with close to eight figures in stolen loot. [Relax -- all that becomes clear in chapter one of forty-three, so I'm hardly giving away the plot...] What follows are the intricacies of legal maneuvers and one-up-man-ship by our hero, as he masterminds his own extrication from prison, while gradually spinning the whole incredible yarn through various conversations meted out carefully enough to keep us turning pages into the wee hours. So, for me, the best John Grisham has indeed stood up -- with riveting story telling, political and social insight into the mechanisms of lawyering, and a tale that engrosses from start to finish. Can't wait for the movie !
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