SOURCE: "Corporate Lawyers Who Lead Wild Lives," in Chicago Tribune—Books, February 24, 1991, p. 6.

Brashler is an American novelist, short story writer, biographer, and critic. In the following review, he praises Grisham's characterizations and literary strategy in The Firm.

Love a lawyer—no easy task in these litigious times—and you are usually enamored of a trial lawyer. At least in literature, where the zealous defender or prosecutor pursues the law in its purest form and shines on the page. Corporate and tax attorneys, those steel-lapeled "of counsels," usually languish in mahogany suites, out of metaphor's eye.

But that was before L.A. Law and other entertainments came along and somehow injected intrigue and spice into the lives of those on retainer. They do have blood as well as billable hours, as it turns out.

John Grisham's The Firm takes things a step further. It gives us Bendini, Lambert...