The Barnes & Noble Review The Street Lawyer is Grisham's latest legal thriller, a gripping page-turner much like his earlier book The Firm. This latest outing delves into the often overlooked world of the homeless, from the perspective of an overworked young lawyer who has never ventured beyond his sheltered upper-middle-class life. His world turns upside down as he realizes, through a series of coincidences and a little homework, that the firm he has given his life to is hiding a secret that if public could ruin the firm's unstained name. Thirty-two-year-old Michael Brock is rising quickly in the competitive ranks of the Washington, D.C., law firm Drake & Sweeney. He has a society wife in medical school, the perfect address in Georgetown, and a baby — his Lexus. All bodes well for a seven-figure future (yes, six doesn't quite cut it anymore) until he looks down the barrel of a .44 and meets the eyes of a homeless gunman at the other end. Brock knows this is no joke — the gun seems 'to be working fine; the smell of its discharge was more noticeable than the odor of its owner.' The gunman, known to Brock only as Mister, takes nine hostages and holds them in a sixth-floor conference room for 12 hours, bound together with rope and lined up against a wall. And if the firearm fails to intimidate, a few pounds of dynamite are neatly strapped to the gunman's chest, handily connected to a single wire for mass detonation. Mister doesn't want money, stock options, or a Lexus — he seeks retribution. Ignored as a street bum, Mister commands attention at the firm as he turns his gun on eachofthe hostages. He demands to see the lawyers' tax returns, and as the 1050s arduously scroll out of the fax machine, Brock is sure that someone will be shot. With the assurance a loaded firearm provides, Mister reprimands his hostages for the total lack of charitable contributions on