I finished John Grisham‘s “The Associate.” My first reaction is that he is one hell of a writer. If he wasn’t, I would not have finished the book. My second reaction is he shouldn’t hinge the success of his plot on technology.
The story follows a first-year Yale Law grad through the chore of working in a NY mega law firm. The brutality of the job of the associate is really the star of the story. The plot and people are window dressing to add gravity to the flaws of the mega law firm way of doing business. The main character’s father is a small-town general practice lawyer so there is a lot of comparison between the two lifestyles.
The climactic moment involves stealing data from a secure computer inside a secure room inside the law firm. The final method devised by the bad guys comes down to a USB port. Anyone with a computer built in the last few years knows the USB port is constantly monitored so you can’t just stick something in and have it go unnoticed. To help pass this idea off as believable, the reader is told the computer is from a security/defense firm and the law firm has their own software. These two points are supposed to help sell the flaw but they help point to it more as a problem than a solution. Why would a defense firm sell a computer with a USB port if the only method of connectivity was a network connection of some kind? Why would a law firm build software but not visually check the specs of the computer they are building it for?
As a reader and a technology person, I would prefer Grisham either nails the technology correctly, creates his own, or never divulges it to the reader.
