The Partner (1997) is a legal thriller by the American writer John Grisham (born 1955). To date, Grisham has written more than 50 novels as standalones or in several series, along with short stories and non-fiction. His adult novels range in genre from primarily legal thrillers to contemporary fiction and satire. He has also written a middle-grade fiction series: Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer. The Partner is a standalone adult novel which combines the legal thriller genre with aspects of the heist crime genre.

Overall, Grisham’s books have sold 300 million copies and he is one of only three authors to have sold 2 million copies on the first printing of a title. He has written 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers and his books have consistently ranked at the top of the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestseller lists. Grisham has won numerous literary prizes, including the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction twice (2011 and 2014) and the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction (2009). His books have been made into 11 films and four television adaptations.

John Grisham grew up in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, in a modest working-class home. He was the first in his family to go to college, graduating from Mississippi State University in 1977 with a degree in accountancy and, in 1981, with a J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law. He practiced law for a several years before being elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives 1983-1990. In 1996, the success of his second novel The Firm led him to give up law to write full time. His family background and legal career figure have strongly influenced his work and inform his novels’ treatment of justice and opportunity, and their examination of the political and legal structures that frame American life.

This guide refers to the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Kindle edition.

Content Warning: This guide and the source text contain descriptions of abduction and torture, and references to the death penalty.

Plot Summary

Patrick Lanigan is a man on the run, living incognito in Brazil. Until four years ago, he was a junior partner in a law firm. At that time he learned that his firm and their client Benny Aricia were complicit in a scheme to defraud the US government. The senior partners and Aricia were set to make millions of dollars from the plan, in which they did not include Patrick. Patrick plotted a rival plan, faked his own death and stole $90 million from his firm and Aricia. He defrauded two insurance companies at the same time. Since then, he has lived in fear of retribution. Now, Patrick’s pursuers are closing in, led by Jack Stephano, a private investigator hired to find him.

In response Patrick sets up a scheme to escape with the help of his girlfriend Eva. Eva poses as an anonymous tipster, charging Stephano $150,000 for Patrick’s exact location. The plan backfires and Stephano’s men abduct Patrick, take him to Paraguay and torture him for the location of the money. Patrick can’t tell his captors where the money is because Eva has wired it to different banks around the world. Eva contacts Agent Cutter from the FBI and tells him that Patrick has been captured by Stephano. Cutter forces Stephano to release Patrick and turn him into the FBI.

With Patrick in FBI custody, Eva contacts Patrick’s old legal friend Sandy McDermott and asks him to represent Patrick. Sandy is amused to learn that Patrick has escaped the rat race and lived free and easy for the last four years. Patrick tells Sandy to get a bug sweeper and regularly clear his office of any surveillance devices planted by the FBI or Stephano. He knows that, now he has been arrested, everyone will be turning their attention to Eva who has control of the money. The trial preparation begins, overseen by Judge Karl Huskey, another old friend of Patrick’s. He agrees to oversee the trial until it reached court, at which point he will need to recuse himself.

The FBI is reviewing the evidence around Patrick’s disappearance. Patrick was originally thought to have died in a car crash fire in Greene County near his hunting cabin. When it became obvious that he had stolen the money weeks after his apparent death, the sheriff of Greene County reviewed the identity of the body found in the car. He suspects that Patrick murdered a 17-year-old boy named Pepper Scarboro and planted his body in the car. Patrick is charged with the murder, although they have no actual evidence of who the body belonged to or how it got there. Patrick pleads not guilty to all charges.

In fact, the body was not Pepper. Pepper was abused and neglected at home, so Patrick arranged for him to have a new identity and disappear into a better life. Patrick ensured that no one would look into Pepper’s disappearance by letting everyone think the body in the car was Pepper once it became clear that it couldn’t have been Patrick. However, the state attorneys believe Patrick had to have murdered the person in the car, whether or not it was Pepper.

The Stephano/Aricia cabal are now looking for Eva. They kidnap her father, trying to force her into the open. Eva panics and phones Patrick at the hotel. He tells her to get Sandy all the information she has on Stephano and get him to contact the FBI to put pressure on Stephano to release Eva’s father. Eva meets with Sandy and finally gives him all the evidence Patrick collected about the fraud set up by Aricia, the law firm and Senator Nye.

Sandy goes home to look over the evidence and Eva goes to a nearby town. She soon realizes Sandy has been followed to the meeting, and that she is now being shadowed. She panics and takes the first flight out of town. She is intercepted by the FBI in Miami. With Eva in FBI custody, the FBI now has tacit control of the money. Aricia and Stephano have no chance of getting it now: Stephano releases Eva’s father.

Sandy and Patrick promise the FBI and the federal prosecutor that Patrick will return the money and a third of the interest earned while he had control of it. He will also turn over all the evidence against Aricia and his cabal in exchange for the FBI dropping all charges against him and releasing Eva. The FBI agree because there is still the murder charge against Patrick in Mississippi, and they feel confident he will be convicted of that.

Patrick finally tells Sandy the truth about the body in the car. Several years earlier, Patrick had become friends with a lonely old man named Clovis Goodman. Clovis helped Patrick by supplying evidence in a trial, and Patrick kept up the friendship. Patrick was the only person in the world who cared about him. Clovis died shortly before Patrick’s flight, and Patrick had charge of all the funeral arrangements. He stole Clovis’s body and hid it in a freezer for weeks before he staged the accident. He didn’t murder anyone, but he has committed the felony of mutilating a dead body.

Patrick and Sandy convince the prosecutor that there is no way for them to prove who was in the car, and no evidence unless Patrick confesses. The prosecutor has no chance of winning the case without Patrick’s compliance. Patrick says he will plead guilty—giving the state a win—but only on condition of no prison time. The prosecutor reluctantly agrees. Patrick is free.

Patrick goes to meet Eva in the South of France, but Eva is not at the hotel. She continues not to arrive. Patrick searches for her for weeks, but he finally has to admit that she has taken the remaining millions and run. Brokenhearted, Patrick resigns himself to returning to Brazil and living the quiet, peaceful life he originally envisioned before he was tempted by the money. He dreams that one day Eva will come back to him.