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The Associate

Phillip Margolin

LittleBrown, £17.99 hbk

Reviewed by Simon Fowler

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According to the blurb this book is up with John Grisham and Scott Turow in the tradition of American courtroom thrillers. Always a suspicious ploy by the publishers, don't you think, to compare their authors to somebody better known. And so it is in this rather bland and certainly unbelievable thriller. Poor boy made good Daniel Ames is a promising lawyer with a prestigious Portland, Oregon law firm. Unfortunately he discovers that the company's biggest client Geller Pharmaceuticals are making drugs whose side-effects are horrendous on its takers. With the help from an initially suspicious woman lawyer he brings Geller to court, finds true love, and (naturally) discovers that there are more important things in life than money. In its favour it is reasonably well-written, particularly the scene in the cemetery when he is being shot at by an unknown man, and moves along at a fairly fast rate. Unfortunately as we have seen the plot is hackneyed and not remotely believable.