THE BROKER by John Grisham ****

Basic storyline: Guy is in jail 6 yrs for (not really positive) trying to sell software that hacks into a Chinese Satellite? The hackers are all dead the guy in jail was put there so the gov't (outgoing pres.) who could care less about him, watch to see who kills him first after pardoning him. The choices are Israelis, the Russians or the Chinese or our own country. I have NO IDEA why all these countries want to kill him. None whatsoever. No one even knows what's on the disks he has, it's all RUMORS about hacking a satellite.

Also this guy's American court lawyer ends up dead too. Joel Backman figures he's next. He also knows the gov't is waiting to see who'll kill him over the disks. He went to jail so he could avoid being killed but now he's tossed into Italy and has tutors teaching him Italian. He meets his second tutor a female and of course we all know 6 lonely years in prison can make the nastiest ugliest female into a princess which Joel decides in  the end to return to.

Mostly a lot of moving around, disguises, trains, walks. Half the time he has no idea he was being followed but he learned to duck into little side streets and find his way home. and loses some followers quite easily.

Pisses me off: what happened to the stolen briefcase? I think I remember it had nothing in it anyway but it's talked about quite a bit. Why would 3 countries who have no idea what he was trying to sell them (I assume) before he went to jail think he had anything they'd want? I don't get that. And I don't get the part where America has his son's house bugged and heard the names of  hotels at the end where he could meet his son YET I don't know which one he didn't mention cuz no one showed up anywhere that I know, even the wrong place. Never wrote that in.

So there some aspects of the novel that obviously needed a better explanation. I did get lost here and there with the idea of 3 countries trying to grab the software they had no idea existed or what it consisted of. I was ticked off 3 hackers were killed before I even knew what they did. I doubt they knew either. I think it was a bit above fair but not by much.