Title: Barely passable
Review: It seems inescapable that Grisham's "The Firm" was his best story. After that, each book has gotten successively worse, roughly linearly, except for this one. "The Street Lawyer" was terrible; "The Brethren" just barely passes muster. It's not that it is unrealistic -- I work in a court and can suspend disbelief for most legal books (which, unfortunately, is invariably necessary) -- but that it is plain & simple a bad read. No real plot to speak of. No characters to which to become attached. No empathy with the story at all, in fact. Stale ideas, stale prose, awkwardly plotted and badly told. Skip this one unless you have absolutely nothing better to do; go back and read a much earlier Grisham or try Brad Meltzer's "The Tenth Justice". Or go for a brisk walk; anything.
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