John Grisham is often described as a writer of "good solid commercial fiction' and his latest offering, The Broker is no exception. It is the story of Joel Backman, a former Washington power broker, who receives a last minute presidential pardon from federal prison where he has been wasting away for the last six years.
In fact the CIA has orchestrated his release believing that Backman holds secret information that could compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Leaking his whereabouts, the CIA then sits back to see who will take him out " the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese or the Saudis.
Good, solid commercial fiction this may be; but how many times must we tread the path of political espionage, CIA conspiracy, government power plays and the guy caught in the middle running for his life? It is a tried and true formula that sits alongside Grisham's other escapist novels but this isn't great writing. The narrative is often slow and embarrassingly cluttered with clichés.
The sheer popularity of Grisham makes him worthy of a look. Arguably, this type of popular crime fiction was born out of the "hard-boiled' detective fiction of the 1920's; writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were innovators in establishing it. Aficionados will be familiar with Chandler's trademark lines like: "She was a blonde " a blonde that could make a bishop kick a hole in a stain glass window." Today the plots may be more complex but the genre is nothing new. The only difference is the one-liners have become less interesting.
On the upside the novel's protagonist, a man once obsessed with wealth, power and women does take a moral turn for the better. But in the end it is Joel Backman who saves Joel Backman " predictably, against all odds.
This kind of faulty humanist superiority is a very popular theme with airport novelists as it ultimately affirms that the individual can make themselves better, change their circumstances and overcome adversity. It says nothing of the problem of universal sin and our need for a saviour. Backman does a bad job taking the place of God. In the world of The Broker there is no need for such a saviour as the razor sharp wit, endurance and strength of the protagonist is enough to see him through. Pity the model doesn't translate to the real world.
