When last seen in The Firm: A Novel, Mitch McDeere and his wife Abby were fleeing Memphis with the bad guys in hot pursuit. Now they’re back, fifteen years later, and living in New York where Mitch is an international lawyer and a partner in a mega-firm. His work takes him across the globe, and not always to safe places. During a trip to Libya, his trusted associate is kidnapped, and an execution is threatened unless an enormous ransom is paid. Only Mitch can facilitate the exchange and I hope readers have as much fun with the novel as I am writing it.413 s24 comments Liz2,355 3,211

The Exchange is billed as a sequel to The Firm. It takes place 15 years later and yes, it has the same two main characters. But it’s hardly a sequel. The first 15% of the book does take Mitch back to Tennessee, but it’s literally a day visit. The real story starts when Mitch is sent by the international NY law firm where he’s now a partner to Europe to help with a lawsuit against Gaddafi and Libya over a construction project.
The action starts when Mitch’s associate (and the daughter of one of their senior partners), is kidnapped in Libya. It takes a while before a ransom demand is made. But action is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there are ugly murders and failed raids by the Libyans. But, there were more meetings than I could count. Mitch spends a lot of time going from city to city but I didn’t need to hear about air travel and lunches. The main action seems to be begging various entities for money to pay the ransom. The suspense comes with Grisham repeatedly saying how many days were left until the deadline. It took me a while to realize the writing was part of the problem. It was just dry.
None of the characters were really fleshed out, even Mitch and Abby. This was a great premise - trying to convince all these entities, from countries to the partners of the law firm to cough up huge dollars to rescue someone. But the execution just fell flat. Parts of the plot made absolutely no sense. And the ending was anticlimactic.
My thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for an advance copy of this book.netgalley401 s61 comments Blaine850 968

“Around Scully the legend is that the Mob almost got you. But you pulled a fast one and outfoxed the Mob. Is that true?”

“I outran the Mob. I didn’t realize I was a legend.”
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for sending me an ARC of The Exchange in exchange for an honest review. This book is going to be a #1 bestseller, but I’ll predict right now that readers will be largely disappointed, and the critics are going to try to one-up each other with zingers in savage .

I first read The Firm when it came out 30+ years ago. It not only reinvigorated the legal fiction genre, but it was one of those books that broke through into super-popularity, The Da Vinci Code or Gone Girl. So there was no chance I wasn’t going to read this sequel, but I went into The Exchange with some big questions.

First and foremost, how and why is Mitch McDeere—in 2005, fifteen years after The Firm—a partner at Scully & Pershing, the fictional largest law firm in the world? When we last saw Mitch, he had angered both the FBI and the Mob, fled the US, and most importantly, had stolen $10 million from his law firm. I know Mr. Grisham hasn’t practiced law in a very long time but … they don’t let you be a lawyer after you do those things. There’s an explanation in the book, but it’s pretty unconvincing. It’s best to just suspend your disbelief and move on.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an interesting story being told in The Exchange. Mitch is summoned to the firm’s Rome office to help with a lawsuit against the Libyan government for payment on a $400 million construction contract. While they are in Libya, one of Mitch’s associates, Giovanna, is kidnapped and held for ransom. The rest of the story is about Mitch and the firm’s efforts to pay the ransom for her safe return. In other hands, this story could have been a thrilling tale of spies and soldiers. In Mr. Grisham’s version, there are a lot of lawyers holding a lot of meetings. It’s terribly flat and fairly tedious. Mitch is often just a fly on the wall, and the kidnappers’ decision to use Abby McDeere as a go-between was absurd. There’s one moment where one character starts to wonder about the moral implications of giving terrorists upwards of $100 million simply to save the life of one woman—a fair question, given the terrorists will spend that money on more death and destruction—but after half a page the dilemma is neither resolved nor raised again.

Instead, The Exchange seems to be Mr. Grisham’s unwise attempt to engage in some revisionist history with Mitch McDeere’s character. Mitch in the The Firm is not the greatest guy. For all his genius, he gets duped into working for the Mob. He cheats on his wife and never tells her. And I’ll repeat because it’s important: he angered both the FBI and the Mob, fled the US, and stole $10 million from his law firm. There’s a mini-subplot at the very beginning about Mitch possibly working on a pro bono death penalty appeal in Memphis. There are these hints that’s there’s more to the case, but it goes absolutely nowhere. The subplot was apparently just an excuse for Mitch to have a very awkward lunch with his old co-worker Lamar, so they can sort of talk out their feelings about what happened in and after The Firm. It’s a tiny bit of closure that only Mr. Grisham needed. And that closure, in retrospect it seems the whole book is about smoothing the edges off of Mitch’s imperfections. Now, he’s a deeply devoted husband and father, and he’s definitely had a change of heart about all of that money he stole.

And just that, one of Mr. Grisham’s most interesting characters becomes a bland, boring corporate lawyer family guy. I think it would have been better to leave the delightfully flawed Mitch McDeere in the past, and instead focus on a new character who could have maybe tied up the dozen or so loose threads left hanging throughout this story. Not recommended.2023 advanced-reading-copies e-book243 s28 comments Tim2,283 244

HUGE let down. The story begins with an okay plot before boring sideways then into a steep decline. 1 of 10 stars167 s1 comment Kay ?*¨2,174 1,086

Not bad! I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

It's 2004, Mitch and Abby McDeere resurface after being on the run. Mitch works for a prestigious multi-national law firm in NYC. His wife Abby is a cookbook editor and they have twin boys.

Luca Sandroni, a senior partner in Rome's office is diagnosed with cancer with months to live. Luca passes a high profile case involving the Libyan government and a Turkish contractor to Mitch.

Mitch and Giovanna, an associate (Luca's daughter) travel to Libya but shortly she is abducted and $100 million is demanded in exchange for her safe return. This is when the story takes off, well sort of.

I wish the story stayed in Memphis when Mitch's assigned to a pro bono case!! He traveled there to meet a "client" who was on death row. Turns out the supposed client hung himself and that was that.
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