BOOK REVIEW JOHN GRISHAM'S 'THE BROKER' IS FULL OF THIN DEALS: SUNRISE Edition

At the CIA's request, Joel Backman receives a pardon. A former Washington, D.C., power broker, Backman has spent the last six years in a federal prison for trying to sell foreign governments the secrets to the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Rather than a sympathe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Oregonian (Portland, Or. 1937) Or. 1937), 2005
Main Author: APRIL HENRY - Special Writer, The Oregonian@LEAD
Format: Review
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:At the CIA's request, Joel Backman receives a pardon. A former Washington, D.C., power broker, Backman has spent the last six years in a federal prison for trying to sell foreign governments the secrets to the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Rather than a sympathetic Everyman who got caught up in something beyond his control, before going to prison Backman was a smug, abrasive, thrice-divorced wheeler-dealer whose services were available to the highest bidder. Now he's offered a choice: Accept a pardon and leave America permanently, or stay and serve out the remaining 14 years of his prison term. Backman, no dummy, accepts. [JOHN GRISHAM] acts like the reader is something of a dummy, because he sets up his fictional world and almost immediately abandons its tenets. The CIA plans to leak Backman's location to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis. Supposedly the CIA will watch who kills him and thus learn who owned the satellite system in the first place.
ISSN:8750-1317