The Partner by John Grisham (Audiobook Review)

He got away with 90 million dollars, but when you steal that much money, you know they’ll never stop hunting you.

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Title: The Partner
Author: John Grisham
Narrator: Frank Muller
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio
Duration: 11 hours, 26 minutes
Copyright: 1997
Genres: legal, thriller, suspense
Filed in: Audiobook reviews
Review copy provided by Kearney Public Library.

THE GIST: Patrick Lanigan had it all. A young hot-shot at his law firm, Patrick was a shoe-in to make partner, so he was financially secure. At home, he had a gorgeous wife and a beautiful four-year-old daughter. It seemed like he was living the perfect life, but appearances are not everything.

Patrick knew his wife was cheating on him. When his daughter was fourteen months old, he had her DNA tested and knew she was not his. When Patrick finally discovered that his partners at the firm were working on a crooked deal and planning to cut him out, he decided he had had enough.

On the way home from his secluded hunting cabin one day, Patrick's SUV skidded off the road, tumbled down a steep embankment, and burst into flames. The only thing left of Patrick was a small pile of ash and a few bone fragments. Several weeks later, his partners received the payout from their crooked deal, 90 million dollars. When the entire amount was diverted from their bank, mere minutes after it arrived, people began to get suspicious. They knew that only someone on the inside could have pulled it off. The firm, and their crooked client, hire some professionals to hunt Patrick down. Since the 90 million was defrauded from the US government, the FBI also began a search.

Patrick’s luck held out for four years before he was finally discovered in Brazil. Unfortunately for Patrick, it was not the Feds who found him first. For almost a week, Lanigan is mercilessly tortured for the whereabouts of the money before the FBI finally catches wind and takes custody of him.

As soon as Patrick is brought back to the US, the law suits start to fly. He faces the death penalty because of the burned remains found in his car. His law firm’s client sues him for the money he stole, and the firm sues him for the percentage that would have been theirs. The firm’s insurance company sues to recover the fraud protection money they paid out. Patrick’s wife sues for divorce, and Patrick's life insurance company sues her for the money they paid out on Patrick's death. That's just for starters.

Patrick Lanigan spends two weeks in a guarded hospital room, quietly using his attorney and his mysterious partner, who is the only person who knows where the money is, to pull the strings. In the end, Patrick gets every law suit dropped, even the ones that were not against him. He walks away clean without ever serving a single day in prison. There is only one contingency that the mastermind never planned for: the greed of his trusted silent partner.

MY THOUGHTS: "The Partner" is my second John Grisham audio book. The first one I read was "The Rainmaker", (there's a link below for my audio book review). I liked "The Rainmaker" a lot, but "The Partner" was a little disappointing. It was interesting watching Patrick Lanigan deflect all those lawsuits one by one, and Grisham’s methods seemed plausible, but “The Partner” was kind of a slow-developing audio book.

NARRATOR: Frank Muller is one of my very favorite audio book readers. I think this is one of those cases where a top-notch narrator salvaged a mediocre audio book.

FINAL WORD: John Grisham created an interesting story for “The Partner”, but ultimately it was not suspenseful enough to be a real page-turner.

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS:
The Firm by John Grisham (Audiobook Review)
The Rainmaker by John Grisham (Audiobook review)
The Brethren by John Grisham (Audiobook Review)


If you liked this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get "The Partner" by John Grisham (Unabridged Audiobook) from Amazon.com.

This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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