John Grisham's latest book is a fun read, but not great literature. I wondered if Grisham wrote it expecting that it would be made into a movie because some of the scenes would be hilarious. He treats serious subjects with humor that keeps the reader reading.

Although all the promos make it seem as though this book is about the two-man boutique law firm of Finley and Figg, the main character is David Zinc. David is a Harvard Law School grad who has toiled miserably in a large law firm in Chicago for five years. Although he is well paid, he is unhappy that he and his wife never get to spend any time together because he is always at work or exhausted from work.

One day David is heading toward his office when he just can't take it any more. He actually dives headfirst into an elevator to leave the building and escape. He spends the day getting drunk in a nearby bar. The bartender puts him in a cab to go home, but he isn't ready to face his wife yet so he has the cab take him to an address he sees on the side of a bus, the offices of Finley and Figg. The story gets interesting after that.

Oscar Finley, age 62, had been a low-end attorney for 30 years. His character is not fully developed. We don't know much about him other than he is neat, spends most of his time alone in his office with the door closed, and has an unhappy marriage.

Oscar's junior partner is Wally Figg. We get to know him better, but he is pretty sleazy and we don't like him much. David doesn't really fit in with these two.

My main criticism of the book is Grisham's weak writing of the female characters. Rochelle, the office help, at Finley and Figg is a stereotype of the angry Black woman who runs everything by intimidating people. She's not willing to work any harder than is absolutely necessary.

At the beginning of the book, David's wife Helen is working on her Ph.D. in art history at Northwestern. She quickly loses interest as soon as she gets pregnant because "her future would be consumed with the baby." Apparently, Grisham believes wives should be barefoot and pregnant. Having been a university administrator, I know a lot of Ph.D.'s. None of them would have dropped their studies that quickly. At the main trial of the book, Helen pretends to be a paralegal so she can assist David. She is referred to as a "bimbo" by a blogger writing about the trial. There is nothing in the book to justify that discription of her.

The main female character is Nadine Karros, the lead attorney on the team opposing David. She works for the large firm that David left and is much higher up the chain that David was. We don't know much about her legal skills that got her to this position because most of what we read about her is her physical description. From the beginning she was described as a sexy, gorgeous woman. After that every time she was mentioned we had to read how high her heels were and how short her skirt was. We already got the point. Not sure why Grisham belabored it. Maybe he was fantasizing. The fact that she was hardworking, intelligent, and tough was not emphasized as much as her looks.

Other women in the book were either real bimbos or litigants who were not too bright. Can't remember if I have noticed Grisham degrading women so much in his other books.

Grisham's treatment of women aside, I really liked this book. Started it one night and read about a third. Picked it up again the next night and couldn't put it down until I finished it about 3 a.m. After a lifetime of reading books I was assigned to read or for book clubs, I am now heavily into reading books I enjoy. I thoroughly enjoyed this one! If it is made into a movie, I would definitely want to see it.