The Partner

The legal thriller has a long and sustained history; its roots are in the courtroom drama which goes back as far as 458 BCE. Eumenides, a play by the Greek dramatist Aeschylus, is a courtroom drama in which Orestes is put on trial for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra. The courtroom drama gained popularity in mid-sixteenth century England, partly because of a renewed interest in Classical literature and because of a public fascination for scandalous trials. English lawyers often published accounts of trials for popular entertainment. Today, the legal drama is distinguished from the courtroom drama with the distinction that in the legal thriller, the reader knows the guilty party from the outset, whereas in the courtroom drama, the goal is to discover the identity of the criminal. After the rise of the novel as a popular literary form, mid-19th century British authors wrote bestselling works focused on crime and legal procedure, most notably Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White, The Moonstone) and Charles Dickens (Bleak House). In the US, Abraham Lincoln wrote “The Trailor Murder Mystery” (1846), based on a case he defended.

Many of Grisham’s novels are in the legal thriller genre, and he is considered one of the genre’s most significant contemporary contributors. In fact, Grisham is sometimes credited with the creation of the legal thriller with his first novel, A Time to Kill (1988). Grisham acquired specific legal and political expertise during his career in this area, and his work tends to be heavily focused on the law’s effects on individuals and society and on the forensic detail of the law in action. It is this focus, combined with heightened suspense and dramatic action, which is at the heart of the legal thriller. Grisham’s popularity and productivity has influenced the growth of the genre, which now includes other bestselling authors such as Michael Connelly and Jo Nesbo.

The Partner combines the legal thriller genre with elements of a heist story. The heist story differs from the courtroom drama or legal thriller in that the protagonist is an anti-hero: It is the protagonist who has committed the crime, and the narrative builds empathy for them. Most often, the protagonist has committed crime out of “pure” motives, or has stolen money from a “victim” who is morally reprehensible. As a result, the momentum of the heist story is more about the protagonist’s desire to escape than a moral tale of a perpetrator being captured and convicted. The heist story can be a highly cynical form of narrative as it subverts the usual assumptions of morality. Patrick has committed crimes, yet the reader wants him to get away with it. The cynicism arises from the reader’s recognition that the legal system is easily thwarted and can be used for bad ends as well as good, and that the law and justice are not always synonymous.