Book Review: The Exchange (The Firm #2)

Rating: 2.5⭐️

It has been fifteen years since the events of The Firm and after spending a few years on the run, now forty-one-year-old Mitch McDeere is based in New York and is a partner at Scully & Pershing, an international law firm, working out of their Manhattan office. The narrative follows Mitch as he is thrust into the midst of a complex web of political intrigue, greed and conspiracy when his London-based colleague Giovanna Sandroni, also the daughter of one of his senior associates is kidnapped in the course of an official trip to Libya, where their firm was representing a Turkish construction company in a lawsuit against the Republic of Libya under Gaddafi's regime. Mitch rushes to arrange for the substantial ransom amount failing which she would be executed - an endeavor that has him traveling across the globe all the while the kidnappers have eyes on him and his family back in New York. Will he be able to save Giovanna before it is too late?

Having loved The Firm and being a fan of Grisham’s work, I had high hopes for The Exchange and was glad to catch up with Mitch and Abby. Abby does play a larger role here as compared to The Firm. I will admit that the premise is interesting, and the narrative moves fast, but this does not make up for the lack of character development and disappointing execution. The plot wasn’t particularly gripping, and I got a bit tired of all the descriptions of travel and food and the repetitiveness in the narrative. Ultimately it all boils down to arranging the money for The Exchange and some updates on Mitch’s family.

I was excited reading the segment in which Mitch visited Memphis once again but was disappointed that the Memphis segment was of no significance to the plot. All that segment accomplished was to raise my hopes for some sort of continuation (or any link for that matter) to the intrigue of Mitch’s past in Memphis only to have them dashed to bits! So, there’s that!

Overall, I was not quite taken with this novel and feel that you really don’t need to have read The Firm to follow this storyline. To be honest I cannot say this is a “sequel” in the true sense of the term. Yes, Mitch and Abby are important characters here but that is about it. Perhaps those who haven’t read The Firm might enjoy it more than those who have. I would love to meet Mitch again but do hope for a stronger plot.

Many thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.