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Getting Older!!! News Flash: John Grisham, like all of us, is Getting Older. And, like all of us who are getting older, his priorities are changing. If you've read his earlier books (and I'm sure you have), he has always hinted that the pace of modern life, especially an attorneys, is conducted at breakneck speed: work, work, work, deals, deals, deals, money, money, money, sex, sex, sex. These are the priorities of many twentysomething attorneys, and his protagonists are no different. But, after fifteen years of writing about these characters, maybe he's realized that it's time for one of his protagonists to do something different, as, indeed an older person would do: stop and smell the roses. Joel Backman is a highpowered Washington attorney and power broker (not stockbroker) who tries to sell a multimillion dollar satellite system to the highest bidding country. He runs afoul of the law, gets several people killed, pleads guilty, and is imprisoned for a number of years. He is granted an early pardon by the lame duck president, and is packed off by the CIA to Italy, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting him, but in reality to make him an easy target for enemies who want revenge. So far, this sounds like the plot to a classic Grisham tale. However, as I have noted earlier, Grisham himself is getting older, and his protagonist is now 52 and has just spent six years in prison. Backman is a smart man, and he figures out that the CIA has dumped him in Italy to get rid of him. So, while pondering his next move, he sits tight, studies the language with a tutor, enjoys good food and wine at the local cafes, meets a sympathetic professor and a potential love interest, and bides his time until he can figure out how to stay one step ahead of his assailants. This middle portion of The Broker is slow and easy, as relaxing as good coffee and companionship. One cannot imagine Mitch McDeere, workaholic protagonist of The Firm, "wasting" his time in this manner, but remember Backman is 52, not 24. He realizes that time can be an ally at this point, the better to familiarize himself with Italy: the cities, the language, the people, and, most important, the passageways and back alleys so that he can one day soon slip away and make his escape. The action picks up in the last third of the novel with a typical Grisham climactic chase and a hilarious news conference with a skeptical (but still willing) reporter. Bottom line: If you basically want a novel that merely replicates the nonstop action of The Firm or A Time To Kill, then don't buy this book. But if you want a first-rate read with many of the same good qualities as earlier Grisham books, plus an excellent, slower-paced midsection where the hero (and the reader) learn to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, particularly as lived in a timeless nation like Italy, then you may want to give The Broker a try. For, although some of us don't like to admit it, we are all getting older and there are beds of roses and everyday joys aplenty to be savored.