Global scam descends into farce

WALLS OF SILENCEBy Philip JolowiczCorgi Publishing, 6.99Victoria MacCallum

With the author's name on the front cover printed in bold raised lettering, it's obvious to whom this chunky read is meant to appeal.

It wants to be John Grisham so much that it hurts, and - perhaps surprisingly - it's not too far off.

A City lawyer originally, Mr Jolowicz's first novel centres around the unusually-monikered Fin Border, a young English lawyer in New York.

He is a hard-living, hard-working hero set for great things, as most in legal thrillers seem to be.

But at the end of the first chapter he sees his friend and client deliberately drive his sports car off the road in uptown New York, killing ten people and landing our boy in a heap of trouble.

Mr Jolowicz has obviously read the rules to writing a good thriller, and the book boasts all the ingredients: glamorous foreign locations, a love interest (senior in-house counsel Carol Amen, 'her brimming eyes, the pink-tinged cheeks - maybe the work of wine'), and a suitably gore-spattered and twist-filled ending.

Most of the book - which centres on an international financial scam - moves at a cracking pace, with the chapters kept short and snappy (presumably its typical reader has an attention span of seconds), with the action never staying put in one place for too long.

The second part of the book descends into a Bollywood farce, a case of James Bond meets 'LA Law' with some cartoon Indian baddies thrown in for good measure - what gangster worth his salt would try to kill someone with a syringe full of poison? - but in general the book acquits itself well for a first novel.

Not particularly taxing on the brain or original in its genre, 'Walls of Silence' is nonetheless a decent airport novel - not in the Virgin business class of thrillers, but certainly not Aeroflot.