The Broker by John Gresham Audiobook

The Broker by John Gresham Audiobook

Info:
Joel Backman has been serving 6 years of a 20 year jail sentence when he is unexpectedly pardoned by the out-going US President. Backman was once a highly influential political power-broker with friends (and enemies) in the highest places. But when he became involved in trading software that had the ability to hack into another country's latest and most sophisticated defence satellite system, he had faced a choice of confession or likely assassination. He chose to confess, needless to say. Now without prior warning he has been set free, although he's being very closely tracked by the CIA (who manipulated the president for Backman's release) and, eventually, secret agents from a number of other countries.

Choosing a new Grisham novel is rarely a difficult decision, he's a good story teller and several of his earlier works have been converted into big-budget movies. I doubt that this will be one of them however. As I progressed through the story, I became more and more interested in the story that wasn't told - the events leading up to Backman's arrest 6 years ago - and wondered if this book was actually a sequel to a previous novel which covered that storyline. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, and it made me wonder if Grisham could have created a better novel if he had told that story rather than this "sequel". It seems to me that there would have been a lot more excitement, more tension and good old entertainment than in The Broker.