SOURCE: A review of The Firm, in Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1991, p. 7.

A former correspondent for both Time and Life magazines, Champlin is a well-known American journalist and critic. In the following review of The Firm, he asserts: "The character penetration is not deep, but the accelerating tempo of the paranoia-driven events is wonderful."

Consider the premise of The Firm, a second novel by John Grisham, who is a criminal defense attorney practicing in Mississippi and living near William Faulkner's home town of Oxford.

A brand-new Harvard Law graduate, who finished high in his class, owes $23,000 in school loans but has a choice of job offers, each more lucrative than the other. Wall Street beckons, but so does a small, obscure firm in Memphis that promises a fat salary, a BMW, a low-cost loan to buy a house and the prospect of retirement at 50 as a millionaire.

Irresistible...