Book of the Week

The Firm by John Grisham
Recommended by David Moreno

Mitch McDeere is fresh out of Harvard Law School with many offers from the best American law firms. He also has a brother in jail, no money, and is struggling to provide for him and his wife, Abby. So when he receives a huge offer from a small tax firm in Memphis, he cannot refuse it.

He is inducted into Bendini, Lambert & Locke and promptly begins work on passing his bar exam, in order for him to practise Law.
A few days into his new job, two associates of the firm die under mysterious circumstances in the Cayman Islands. Interested, Mitch hires Eddie Lomax, a private investigator, who finds out that although no-one has ever left the firm, five lawyers have been killed, and their cause of death never confirmed. Two days later Eddie Lomax is assassinated in his office. Then the FBI contacts Mitch and informs him that Bendini, Lambert & Locke, the firm he has joined, masterminds a multimillion-dollar money laundering operation so that the Morolto crime family can outsmart the IRS and shield its income. It is now up to Mitch to help the FBI indict the Morolto crime family without the Mafia detecting what is going on.

One of the things that hooked me in this book was the portrayal of the main character, Mitch. Even though the story does not spend much time explaining characters, Mitch is easily likeable because he is hard-working and dedicated, but not to the point of sucking up to anyone. He is decisive and clear-headed even with dilemmas which risk his life, such as giving up Mafia information to the FBI. Despite the fact that he is working closely with the director of the FBI, he is never shy to speak up about his concerns.

This book also highlights one of the problems with today’s society; greed. This is the one flaw that Mitch has. He comes from a poor background and has no money, therefore is inclined to take the highest paying job he is offered. Bendini, Lambert & Locke offer him the highest salary, a low-interest mortgage, a new BMW, usage of the Firm’s private jet and complexes in the Cayman Islands, and a guarantee that he will be a multi-millionaire by the age of 45. Mitch cannot resist this and so gives in to his greed. This of course, was too good to be true, but he didn’t want to believe that.

This book, although obviously fictional, is still relevant to the ongoing affair named 'The Panama Papers'. Reading it shone some light on how money laundering and tax fraud works; I almost want to make a comparison between Bendini, Lambert & Locke and Mossack Fonseca.