The Partner

The Partner

Presented by: Leen Tabouni

Presented to my teacher: Sawsan Shehadi

Class: 8th Grade

School: Jaffa Middle School

The Partner

The Partner is a legal/thriller novel by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham’s eighth novel.

Author: John Grisham

Originally published: 1997

Genres: Novel, Fiction, Thriller, Legal thriller, Legal Story

Characters of the story are Patrick Lanigan, Eva Miranda, Jack Stephano, Benny Aricia, Joshua Cutter, Trudy, Lance and Sandy McDermott.

Introduction

Patrick Lanigan died in a car crash. Then, six weeks after his “death”, his partners realized that he was still alive. He had also stolen ninety million dollars from them and their client. The search for Patrick began.

Now, four years later, he’s been found. How was he found? How did he steal the money? Will the partners and their client ever recover it?

About the author

John Grisham was born in 1955 in Arkansas in the
southern United Sates of America. He majored in
accounting at Mississippi State University, and then he
graduated from law school in 1981. Then he started to
practice law in Southaven, Mississippi, specializing in
criminal defense and personal injury litigation. He often
helped people in lawsuits against big companies, or to
get compensation for accidents. In 1983 he was elected
as a Democrat to the state House of Representatives, and
served until 1990.

Summary

The Partner is set in the mid-1990s in South America,
and in the southern United States. The protagonist is
Patrick Lanigan, a lawyer from Biloxi, Mississippi. At the
beginning of the story he’s living a new life as Danilo Silva
in Brazil. Four years previously he played a dangerous
game: he pretended that he was killed in a burning car,
and he watched his own funeral from a distance. A few
weeks later, $90 million dollars was stolen from his law
firm and its client. His partners and their client have been
searching for Patrick to get the money back.

Background and them

The Partner is typical of Grisham’s extremely successful brand of storytelling. There are several instantly recognizable themes: the legal setting, the small-time lawyer practicing in the American south, and powerful forces against which the hero has to fight, for example the Mafia or the FBI.
The Partner has a large cast of characters and few of them are honest or decent. Grisham seems to be saying that the world we live in is corrupt, selfish, and greedy.

Greed for money: The theme of greed for money runs
throughout The Partner. Patrick’s wife is not interested
in him, only the insurance money she received after he
disappeared. The government gets its $90 million back,
and demands 9 percent interest on it, too. At one point
in the novel there are four different lawsuits as people and
companies all try to recover money they think is theirs.