Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: June 5, 2012
Publication Date: June 5, 2012
Summary: Mike Ford is a
former con artist who's been plucked from his Harvard Law School classroom to
be an associate at The Davies Group, Washington's most high-powered and
well-respected strategic consulting firm. Their specialty: pulling strings and
peddling influence for the five hundred most powerful people inside the
Beltway, the men and women who really run Washington -- and by extension the
country, and the world.
The namesake of the firm, Henry Davies, knows
everyone who matters; more importantly, he knows their secrets. Davies'
experience goes back 40 years -- he worked for Lyndon Johnson, jumped shipped
to Nixon, then put out his own shingle as the Hill's most cut-throat and
expensive fixer. Now he's looking for a protégé to tackle his most high-stakes
deal yet, and Mike fits the bill.
Quickly pulled into a seductive, dangerous web
of power and corruption, Mike struggles to find his way out. But how do you
save your soul when you've made a deal with the devil?
Review: "Every man has a price". That seems
to be the motivating factor in the debut novel, "The 500", by Matthew
Quirk. In the book, Quirk depicts the inner workings of Washington D.C.'s
five-hundred most influential people, through an imaginative and engaging
thriller.
Mike Ford is an
outsider. As a student at the prestigious Harvard Law, Mike works hard to live up
to the societal standards of his affluent classmates. Unlike his peers, Mike,
the son of a convicted felon, has grown up in a world of crime. After his
disease stricken mother passed away, he was left with a jailed father, his
mother's medical bills, and the choice to either make a better life for himself
or meet the same fate as his father.
A standout at
Harvard, Mike is given the opportunity to be an associate at The Davies Group,
a powerful consulting firm in Washington. The group is paid by individuals,
corporations, and special interest groups to influence the movers and shakers
of Washington, the 500. Henry Davis, who formed the company, sees a spark of
himself in Mike and quickly appoints him to a high profile deal that could lead
to his partnership.
Essentially, The
Davies Group uses the knowledge that "every man has a price" to find
ways to "influence" the heavy players in the D.C. scene. Mikes street
knowledge helps him to climb the ladder, providing more fortune, connections, and
prestige than he could ever have dreamed of. When Davies pulls Mike off of his
major deal, Mike immediately suspects foul play. He enters a conspiracy that
threatens everything he has worked for and even his life.
Matthew Quirk
has been compared to veteran legal thriller author John Grisham. While I
definitely see similarities between Quirk's fast pace, legal jargon, and
characters with those in Grisham's earlier novels, Quirk writes with an urgency
and contemporary structure that is uniquely his own. The novel begins with a
tease from the climatic ending and then goes back the the chronological
beginning, grabbing the reader from the start and providing immediate
anticipation. I was reminded of the 2007 film "Michael Clayton" in
which a corporate "fixer" gets involved in a similar web of corrupt
power. Overall, "The 500" is a fast and contemporary legal thriller
that is a fantastic debut.
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