The Exchange – John Grisham

Fifteen years after his unfortunate business in Memphis, Mitch McDeere is living in New York, a partner at one of the world’s biggest law firms.  When a beloved colleague in Rome falls ill, Mitch agrees to take over his prized case: suing the Libyan government for money owed to a Turkish firm who built a bridge in the middle of the desert.  Things quickly go south, though, when an associate, the daughter of Mitch’s Italian colleague, is kidnapped while attempting to visit the bridge.  When Mitch’s wife is contacted about the ransom demands, they are reminded of the trouble they faced fifteen years prior, quickly putting their kids into hiding.  Can Mitch work with his firm and the involved governments to raise the money needed to save his associate?  Or will she suffer the same fate as her male bodyguards: killed and beheaded?

Back in 1993, I read The Firm, my first John Grisham novel.  30 years later, we finally get a sequel in The Exchange, though there isn’t much of a throughline aside from the McDeeres and the trauma the suffered in the earlier work. I enjoyed most of it, though the ending felt a little anti-climatic and seemed to wrap everything up too quickly.  I’ve been in and out on Grisham since the early days in the 90s, and it feels like I’m heading towards out again, at least for the foreseeable future.