The Street Lawyer - John Grisham

Advantages: everything
Disadvantages: none

The Street Lawyer John Grisham As some my regular readers (I wish…) will know, I am a John Grisham fan and am currently reading and reviewing all of his books. As with all Grisham books, this is based around the law and lawyers. The Street Lawyer, as the name suggests, deals with a lawyer who works the street. In this sense, I mean in an office helping the homeless - not ambulance chasers. The Characters John Grisham has always been good ...
...insight into every detail. By the middle of the book, you feel as if you know them. This is good as it draws the reader in and allows more emotions to be felt. E.g. sorrow when something bad happens to the 'good guy.' However, nobody is perfect and each character has another side, this is not always clear at first and so makes for a good read. Michael Brock Mike is a Yale graduate and currently working at a top law firm called Drake and Sweeney. ... Read review

Advantages: A Grisham fan is likely to pick this up straight away
Disadvantages: It is not quite the same as his normal legal thrilers

The main character in this one is Michael. He is a lawyer earning a lot of money at a massive law firm in Washington, DC. However, a homeless man takes him hostage one day. He and his fellow lawyers survive the incident, but their assailant is not so lucky, killed and buried in a pauper’s grave. This shocks Michael greatly. He digs into the man's past and discovers a dirty secret, relating to the law firm where he works. The ladder that he ...
...him. He lives on the streets, becoming the eponymous street lawyer, but he is being hunted as a thief. Can he expose the law firm or is he going to jail? I have heard many people say that John Grisham is finished as a writer. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. ‘The Street Lawyer’ just proves my point. Grisham is going from strength to strength and I am certain that there will be many works more books in the works ... Read review

Advantages: Well-written, moving, excellent plotline
Disadvantages: Too short!

...this story its power, is the way the writer forcefully brings the homeless up to the same 'level' as so-called middle and upper-class society. The lead character's apparent fall from high society to the lowly depths of street life, and the way he gradually begins to realise and accept that the homeless are human too, touches something deep inside the reader's soul. The story centres around a case involving seventeen homeless people who are wrongfully ...
...several of the evictees dying of exposure on the streets. The case is being fought, not to secure pointless millions for the dead plaintiffs, but to force society to recognise that this is happening every day in our cities, in the face of all the empty promises made by governments that it will stop. People are being tossed onto the streets by the very people promising to keep them in a warm home. We are made to feel uncomfortable that society in ... Read review

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...Grisham has all but owned the best-sellers lists for the past seven years. The Street Lawyer is the one such success. Of course, such a tremendous run of success brings its own pressures, as witnessed by some of the trite passages in his last few books. Fans should be celebrating this latest offering however, as The Street Lawyer is Grisham's most complete book since The Chamber. And like The Chamber, the reason for the quality is that Grisham again ...
...the homeless. With his usual frantic pacing, Grisham rips through a story of young, successful lawyer Michael Brock, whose rapid rise through the company ranks comes to shuddering stop when a homeless man takes him and some colleagues hostage. The man is soon stopped by a police bullet, but the brief dose of danger shakes our hero from his corporate sleepwalking and plunges him into the world of the Washington D.C. homeless. As his conscience awakes, ... Read review

Advantages: Gritty and honest thriller
Disadvantages: Strong on plot, less character development

...changes your perception of how the world could be. As I had only ever come across multi-million selling author John Grisham as the name behind the film of his hit The Firm (and an uninspiring performance from Tom Cruise) I was not expecting great guns from this book. Michael Brock is about to undergo a life changing experience. A top attorney in firm in Washington DC, he turns up for work one day and innocently crosses the path of Mister, and homeless ...
...Michael is prompted to investigate the grudge he held against his employer, Drake and Sweeney. While the original premise may seem quite simple - even in Washington, a landlord must give a tenant 30 days notice of eviction by law - the efforts of Drake and Sweeney to cover up an illegal eviction ensure that the story does not die with Mister that day in their plush office. What gives this novel a hard edge is Grisham's approach to the issue of homelessness. ... Read review

Advantages: Very interesting and riveting
Disadvantages: Understanding some of the "hill" language

.... Latcher Several young children OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN GRISHAM A Time to Kill The Firm The Pelican Bried The Client The Chamber The Rainmaker The Runaway Jury The Partner The Street Lawyer The Testament The Brethern... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Clever plot, interesting subject, accurately written
Disadvantages: Little character development, detailed and confusing

...the aforementioned Rankin Fitch, we also have the interestingly named Durr Cable, Martin Jankle, Hoppy Dupree, Lonnie Shaver and Shine Royce, amongst others, to contend with. I would have enjoyed the book more had it been written predominantly from the point of view of one or two characters, but it chopped and changed a lot throughout – albeit by necessity, due to the complexity of the story. The legal context is something that I find very interesting, but if you have only a minor interest in legal matters then you will probably find some of this book too heavy going. Despite that, it is flawlessly written, and as usual, Grisham writes with authority on the subject. This is only the second John Grisham book that I have read, the first having been “The Street Lawyer”, which was completely different as it stayed very much with a single character... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful