Into the realm of politics and espionage

Readers of popular fiction, like consumers of fast food, value consistency more than other attributes of their chosen fare. It’s comforting to know that the next In-N-Out burger or Cherry Garcia cone will be as satisfying as the previous one. Similarly, those who indulge in the works of popular authors -- especially those who create series -- expect that reading their favorite writer’s latest creation will reward them with a few hours spent with familiar characters, a chance to visit with some returning friends.

For the writer of popular fiction, readers’ demands can turn into a burden. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, professed to being sick of Sherlock Holmes. “At last,” Doyle wrote in his “Memories and Adventures” in 1924, “after I had done two series [of stories about Holmes], I saw that I was in danger of having my hand forced, and of being entirely identified with what I regarded as a lower stratum of literary achievement.”

As Conan Doyle was in his day, John Grisham may be the most commercially successful author of his generation. Also like Conan Doyle, Grisham appears eager to display his talents in genres apart from that for which he is best known -- in his case, legal thrillers. His recent output includes a memoir of high school football (“Bleachers”), a reminiscence of small town life (“A Painted House”) and a holiday tale (“Skipping Christmas”). Grisham’s new novel “The Broker” ventures into the realm of international spies and Washington politics.

Joel Backman, the central figure of Grisham’s new book, is a notorious Washington powerbroker. Convicted of treason for attempting to sell a secret satellite system to foreign governments (although why this conduct was illegal is never explained), Backman suffers public ruin and is buried in a federal penitentiary. Suddenly, after six years’ imprisonment, at the behest of the CIA, he is pardoned and transported to Italy to lose himself in a new identity. Secretly, however, the CIA plans to unmask Backman and let him be killed by his enemies.

Backman is far from sympathetic, and it appears Grisham never intended him to be so. He has three failed marriages, several estranged children, no friends and certainly no self-esteem. It’s difficult to envision him as having been the head of a powerful Washington law firm, a position demanding charisma, high intelligence and a deep understanding of the political machinery -- attributes with which Backman is credited but never displays.

The intrigue too is oddly unsatisfying. Why does the CIA want to know who wants to kill Backman? It’s apparent that the government already knows who will try to kill him. And why do these enemies want him dead? His secrets (which ultimately consist of nothing more than the contents of a single Swiss bank account) may be valuable, but his death will benefit no one. Soon after Backman’s release, he’s convinced (and rightly so, admits one official) that the CIA plans to drug him to obtain the source of the satellite system. Yet within hours, this seemingly sensible -- albeit morally offensive -- approach has been abandoned for no apparent reason, and the “let’s-make-Backman-a-target” plan is in full swing.

It’s tempting to dismiss Grisham’s debut spy thriller as just undercooked fast-food fare. But Grisham is a fine writer, with a talent (like Conan Doyle) for creating memorable characters in even his weakest work. Here, his portrait of an impoverished but proud language instructor and tour guide, a middle-aged woman with a husband dying of cancer, lingers after the details of satellites and espionage are forgotten. Here too is a lovingly detailed landscape of Bologna and several other cento citta, the small towns of Italy. Grisham adores Italy, he proclaims in a note, and all things Italian, and no reader can be unmoved by the gastronomic pleasures he recounts and the architectural beauties he depicts.

For a few months, Backman savors the pleasures of the simple life of these towns, which in many ways mirror the joys Grisham finds in his beloved American South. When Backman abruptly flees to Washington, it’s arrivederci! to the real Italian lives Grisham observes and back to the make-believe world of spies and politics. *