John Grisham
The Associate

Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation, with a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret - and one night that secret catches up with him in the form of some bad men in a dark alley ­and they have a video of the incident that haunts him. Kyle no longer

owns his own future - he must do as they tell him. What price do they demand for Kyle's secret? Strangely, it is for Kyle to do exactly what any ambitious young lawyer would want to do: take a job as an associate at the largest law firm in the world, a job that is incredibly well paid and could lead to partnership and a fortune. Only Kyle won't be working for the company, but against it. Will his intellect, cunning and bravery be enough to extricate him from an impossible dilemma?

Reader Profile
Vincent Marzello has appeared in theatres throughout the West End. On television he has appeared in Father Ted, Dalziel and Pascae and The Fragile Heart, while on film he has had roles in Velvet Galdmine, Never Say Never Again, Superman and The Eagle Has Landed.

Jane Green
The Beach House

Nan, a widow whose family has flown the nest, is an independent free­spirited woman who couldn't care less what people think about her living alone in her beloved house. But when she discovers the money is running out, she decides to rent out rooms for the summer. People start moving into the house, filling it with noise, laughter and tears. Among them is Daniel, a recently divorced father of two girls, and Daff, the single mother of a truculent teenager. As the house comes to life again, Nan finds her family extending. Her son comes home for the summer and then an unexpected visitor arrives, turning all their lives upside down.

It is 1972. Neil Countryman is from the public high school in north Seattle. He slumps at his desk all day and gets high in the park at lunchtime. John William Barry is from a private academy for the more privileged of the city's youth. He is an earnest, fiery young man, and his family background is one of material wealth and emotional deprivation. Theirs is a friendship that is both fraught and intimate. Both boys have a taste for the wilderness, and they explore together the most remote areas of the mountains. But as they grow older, John William's intense intelligence and craving for isolation mark him out as an eccentric, and as Neil begins to accumulate the more conventional comforts - a wife, a steady job - their lives begin to take radically different paths.