John Grisham Writes About Seccuro Case?

I am a long time Grisham fan having read several of his previous books. His newest novel is "The Associate" and it was published over a year ago. The central theme of the book is blackmail. A shadowy, underworld figure presents the protagonist with a damning video which implicates two of his former fraternity brothers in the sexual assault of a young woman at a fraternity house. The woman is depicted by the brothers as a promiscuous drug user. The video shows her nearly passed out as sex commences -- although everyone appears to be blasted out of their minds not just her. She screams "Rape!", but the facts and evidence do not support her claim and the police let all the alleged rapists go. The woman drops out of school and the incident appears to be over. Years have passed and she is now working for a high-powered publicity seeking "victims rights" attorney (a la Gloria Allred) who smells blood in the water and wants nothing more than to squeeze money out of these young men and their wealthy families. Neither is aware of the video, but the protagonist recognizes how this video in the wrong hands could destroy his future legal career even if he had nothing to do with the alleged assault. For reasons that really make no sense to me, but make for good fiction, the protagonist decides he must do the evil bidding of the underworld figure instead of alerting authorities. The Duke Lacrosse case is mentioned in the novel as a possible parallel, but the facts look like something nearer to my interests.

One of the brothers, who is a wealthy playboy, sometime movie actor and constantly relapsing drug addict and alcoholic, joins a 12 step program and finally admits his powerlessness to the twin demons of rum and cocaine. He decides to make a list of all the people he's harmed. Initially, the list only contains family members who have financed his frequent visits to rehab, but eventually, the young girl who claimed she'd been raped makes the cut. He decides he must go to see her and ask for her forgiveness. I won't give out more of the plot other than to say that things do not end up well for him. In fact, I'd say the expression "no good deed goes unpunished" would fit his situation quite nicely. Sounds a lot like another man who took his 12 step vows seriously and decided to make amends, doesn't it?

Throughout the novel, we are led to believe that the woman is probably lying. My take was she went into college intoxicated with the freedom of youth. No longer under the thumb of mom and dad she lived life in the fast lane and then something happened that night and she decided that having meaningless sex with "hot" fraternity boys was not the way she intended to live her life.

Obviously, the girl in the novel does not fit Seccuro precisely. Seccuro was allegedly a virgin and was not known to be a serial drug user. But the way in which the girl in the novel holds tenaciously to the idea that she must exact a pound of flesh from this boy fits Seccuro very well. The fact that Seccuro seems unwilling to accept any part of the repentent Beebe's apology unless it is coupled with a pound of flesh is indicative of the attitude of the young woman in the novel.

This book isn't Grisham's best, but the subject matter made the reading more enjoyable.