What I Read -- The Exchange

I've been reading loads of mysteries lately trying to find something compelling (that wotd reviers love and editors hate), distracting, something I wanted to race to the end of.  I finally found it in that old stalwart, John Grisham.

I picked up a copy of The Exchange at one of those little free libraries. I had a couple of books to leave there, and grabbed this one in, well, in exchange (ha). 

A couple of things to be clear about.  First, this is not the "sequel" to the firm that it may at first seem like it will be.  It boasts the same main character, Mitch McDeere, supported by his ever-patient wife, Abby (now a cookbook editor and hostage negotiator), but the throughlines really end there.  Second, as that last sentence illustrates, the machinations that get us through the story, with Mitch's cookbook-editor-from-Kentucky wife as the centerpiece in $100-million-dollar hostage negotiations are simply ludicrous. 

But that's the magic of someone like Grisham.  The story can be a completely insane, unbelievable, never-gonna-happen disaster scenario, but the pages just keep turning, regardless of how completely bonkers it all is.  And that is what I have been looking for.