No sooner is he in place than the FBI rousts him out. They tell Mitch the firm is owned by the Chicago mob, which uses it to set up dummy corporations on Grand Cayman that launder countless millions. They offer him a choice: cooperate with the FBI and risk being murdered by his new colleagues, or refuse - and be sent to prison when the FBI moves in.
Improbabilities abound, the characters are ciphers - and yet the story has significant strengths. It contains useful information on such matters as how to send the massed troops of justice in the wrong direction, and how to move dirty money among numbered accounts. It also offers an irresistible plot. A plot that seizes a reader on the opening page and propels him through 400 more is much rarer in commercial fiction than is generally supposed. Like all such stories, it works best in its first half, when we’re wondering how Mitch will be tripped up. Toward the end, the story gets physical, which requires another narrative skill. Grisham excels here, too.
