I have finally finished The Associate. Kyle has brought in not only his personal lawyer, who he consistently maintains is one of the few people he trusts, but also the Department of Justice and the FBI. They are the only people Kyle has told the full story too, until he tells his father and Dale, his fellow employee and budding romance partner. Kyle has shared his sketches of Bennie, as well as his assistants Nigel and a few other "thugs" that follow Kyle around, with the FBI. Feeling confident that they can capture Bennie, the FBI sets up a trap at one of the spots Bennie set up to meet with Kyle. As far as Kyle knows, Bennie is unaware that Kyle has gone to the feds, however, the FBI receives a surprise when they bust through Bennie's hotel window: it is vacant. Long before then, Bennie had exited the hotel and is likely long gone. The government has relocated Kyle to Pensacola, Florida while they do their best to nap Bennie and keep Kyle safe. However, Kyle refuses to become a part of the witness protection unit, becomes bored in Pensacola, and is soon back in the city. He has made up his mind that he doesn't want to work for Scully and Pershing anymore, and informs the partners higher up on the corporate food chain that he has reason to believe a spy is working for them. Like Dale, he is moving out of the city back to his roots, and plans to start up a smaller law firm, McAvoy and McAvoy, with his father. He has realized his intrinsic desire to get back to being a lawyer with "real clients" and doing what he loves. The story ends at this point, with no clear indication of what happened with Bennie, Joey Bernardo, nor Elaine and the rape allegation.
Personally, I really enjoyed the book. John Grisham is a very capable thriller novelist, and he captured my attention from beginning to end. Kyle was exactly the protagonist I crave reading about, and his thoughts and actions throughout the novel kept me wanting not only to read more, but to know more about Kyle's character. Grisham did a good job of developing Kyle throughout the novel, descriptively detailing Kyle's careful line between innocent pawn in a master plan and master crook and thief of corporate secrets. Kyle maintains this desire to keep his hands clean throughout the book, and the way Grisham paints him as senile to his peers even though Kyle knows he's sane was very interesting.
That being said, I absolutely DID NOT enjoy the ending. It simply ended, without any wrapping up of loose ends or anything of the sort. In my opinion, Grisham should have done something before ending the book, be it: explain Kyle's triumphing over Bennie, Bennie's maintained chokehold on Kyle's life, Elaine dropping the rape charges and having the whole plan disintegrate, Elaine pushing the rape charges harder, or even some sort of cliffhanger. However, this abrupt ending wasn't a cliffhanger at all, it simply...ended. Maybe if I read more of Grisham's work, I will discover that he has a knack for this, in which case I don't think I want to read him anymore. However, the ending of The Associate did not detract from the truly compelling story that it really was.
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