I don't remember if I've ever read anything by Grisham previously, and I only picked this one up because it was about the only thing available in a remote bookstore I was in. I'm glad I did, because Grisham is unlike anything I've seen. Money is constantly in the focus, and the characters spend most of their time either trying to acquire it, talking about acquiring it, or ruing about how they lost it. In this, they're infinitely closer to real people than characters in most other books, who seem to exist in some alternate universe where such banal things as money are never considered.

Of course, the main character does in the end turn away from money, but that's just a facade put up by Grisham. He earns $40 million a year, so he's not exactly in the position to tell people they should throw their lives away and work for pennies defending the poor.

The book itself is a real page-turner, and the plot is interesting without being everything. Sure the characters are somewhat shallow, but that's to be expected in a thriller.