The Broker

The Broker is a suspense novel by the American writer John Grisham, published on 11 January 2005. Its subject is the trade in secrets at the top of American government, and the man who arranged it.

Joel Backman earned the nickname the Broker in Washington, where he was a lobbyist with access to everything and a habit of selling it. The deal that ended his career was the sale of a spy satellite that had been hacked without anyone noticing, and when the arrangement fell apart he went to prison. Six years later the political situation has changed, and suddenly there are men with power who want him dead. An outgoing president, acting at the request of the CIA, signs a pardon, and Backman is taken out of prison during the night, put on a military aircraft and flown to Italy with a new identity.

The life he is given there is comfortable and carefully arranged, but the arrangement itself is the puzzle: he is placed in a city where nobody knows him, provided with people who are paid to help him learn the language and pass unnoticed, and watched the whole time. The novel is concerned with what he can work out about why a pardon was worth granting, and with the people who want him found before he does.