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The Partner" is good Grisham, more intriguing than the last few, more interior. There are no whirlwind chases or breathless escapes. The fascination is with the cunning and almost preternatural planning that John Grisham's antihero, Patrick Lanigan, is capable of.
Patrick, a young, upcoming but disenchanted partner in a Biloxi law firm, planned what may be the perfect crime, including his own death and the stealthy takeover of $90 million. As the details are revealed and the perfection possibly imperiled, you can't help rooting for this guy. But, you ask all the way through, can he get away with it?
Michael Beck does a more than credible job as storyteller, getting the accents, Mississippi and otherwise, and the mood just right.
Ben Bradford, the antihero of Douglas Kennedy's "The Big Picture", is also a young, upcoming, disenchanted partner in a law firm, this one in New York. I think that you'll be rooting for him too. Ben didn't plan anything, not at first anyway. In a fit of justified rage, in "five unhinged seconds," he moves from upstanding father, husband and citizen to man on the run, whose former identity must never come to light. 
Ben's planning begins after the crime, when "perfection" is his only way out. This is more than a can-he-get-away-with-it; Ben's life, before and after, makes you think about success, compromise and real happiness. Cotter Smith's narration captures all the nuances of Ben's shifting circumstances and the tension of Douglas Kennedy's well-plotted story.
Another, somewhat more likable hero to root for is Andy Caspar, an idealistic son of Silicon Valley, who battles the big boys with big bucks and big prestige in "The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest", Po Bronson's new novel, read here by Aaron Fryc.
Andy and his motley crew of coders, programmers and engineers leave the security and the confines of a major techno think tank to create the VW of the PC world, a small computer that's cheap, very cheap, and every bit as good as its more expensive cousins. The big boys don't want this to happen and it takes a lot more than good code to keep them at bay and keep the machine in play. It's fun, fast and may renew your faith in that ultra-American breed, the entrepreneurial underdog.
Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month. Don't miss her audio book reviews on CNN's "Sunday Morning."
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