#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA.

It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis.

Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive--there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

Don't miss John Grisham's new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

Author: John Grisham
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Published: 01/11/2005
Pages: 368
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.48w x 1.22d
ISBN: 9780385510455

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.9
Point Value: 16
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 86376 / Broker


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2004 pg. 118
Ingram Advance 01/01/2005 pg. 37
Ingram Advance 02/01/2005 pg. 25
Entertainment Weekly 01/14/2005 pg. 91
People Weekly 01/17/2005 pg. 55
New York Times 01/09/2005 pg. 18
Publishers Weekly 01/10/2005 pg. 39
Library Journal 09/01/2004

About the Author
John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.