Gale Ann A. Sayson John Grisham’s books are usually described as “legal thrillers”. He does share with the world the conscience of a critic and the soul of a preacher. He is able to entertain you in his stories which makes you much more of a viewer than a reader. From the start of his career, he has been very successful and very intelligent, taking over issues from racial injustice and children’s rights to the death penalty and homelessness. In The Street Lawyer, some scenes become civics lessons and has many dialogues which I just had to search in the net to understand what it meant.
Such as my reaction when I read his novel “Angels and Demons” which became physics lessons and the world revolving on the gap between religion and science. In “The Street Lawyer” ,thirty-two-year-old Michael Brock, an antitrust lawyer working in the swank D. C. offices of Drake Sweeney, is taken hostage, along with eight other attorneys, by an armed street person who identifies himself only as “Mister. ” Although Mister threatens to kill everyone, his motives remain a mystery. His only demand is to be told how much money his prisoners earned last and how much they gave away to charity.
One deadly shot by a police sniper ends the six-hour standoff, but it results a life change for Michael Brock. Discovering that Mister had recently been evicted from his squatter’s apartment, and, further, that the eviction was orchestrated, illegally, by his own law firm, Michael flirts with the notion of leaving Drake Sweeney to join the staff of a legal clinic as a public-interest lawyer; when it appears likely the deaths of a young mother and her four small children, Michael not only quits his job but also goes after his powerful former colleagues with a vengeance.
Everything happens with speed. In a span of just 32 days, Michael Brock changes careers, ends his soured marriage, swipes a file of sensitive documents, nearly gets killed in a car crash, is arrested and beaten up, tracks down a reluctant witness, and even finds a girlfriend. The Street Lawyer can really be urban reality, but Grisham’s storytelling is realism, it made me see how mysterious life could be. And I am sure,with this book in store,you would be able to learn too,all the days of reading is all worth it.
