Danilo Silva did a good job altering his face, leaving no trail, and keeping it low. Yet somehow, he knew his past would catch up with him. Soon, he was Patrick Lanigan again, back in American soil, with indictments left, right and center.
Patrick Lanigan, a partner at the Bogan, Rapley, Vitrano, Havarac, and Lanigan, was laid to rest by his family and friends and colleagues, in a quiet funeral in a town in Mississippi. He died from a fiery car crash, unrecognizable, but a human pelvis was discovered on the site. It was Patrick's car so it was assumed to be his pelvis. Six weeks after the funeral, the money that was supposed to be the law firm's fee for a fraud case disappeared. Nobody knew about the fee but the partners; nobody knew about the case but the partners, and Lanigan. Soon, speculations arose that maybe, just maybe, Patrick was not dead, after all.
This novel by John Grisham is not a legal thriller the way I know legal thrillers to be. The only vestige of legality in this work is the main character being a lawyer. But everything else is a thriller. And a good one at that. The Partner is a work of art - from the exhilirating start to the bittersweet end. The story of Patrick Lanigan is being fed to the other characters, and to the readers, in small amounts, keeping the suspense at bay until the plot explodes in high doses towards the end. Like the rest of the characters, the readers are awed by the masterful way in which Patrick plotted his escape, and his death. It is a story-telling novel, pure and simple, with Patrick narrating his adventures to his lawyer and friends. But I was not bored and this is a good enough reason for this work to be among my favorites of the Grisham series.