In many similar thrillers, the information I’ve just described would be a shocking spoiler, not revealed until much later in the book. However, the author realizes that his corporate villains and their murderous scheme are the most interesting aspects of The List. So, he reveals most of the details in the book’s few chapters, which include ride-alongs where readers accompany the hit men on a couple of their well-planned and well-staged kills. The author wisely withholds some details of the villains’ overall system, revealing them in an information dump much later in the book. Normally, I’m opposed to overused devices like convenient info dumps, but this information is even more ghoulish and shocking given the circumstances of its revelation.

Because of the book’s somewhat unusual structure, the good guys in The List are playing catch-up to readers and the villains for much of the novel. Brent Walker is the company’s newly hired assistant general counsel. He grew up in Woods County and then moved to Atlanta for a few years before deciding to come back. Hank Reed is the president of the local union and the most popular labor leader at Southern Republic. For most of the book, they are involved in the company’s periodic negotiations with the union for a new labor contract. Brent and Hank gradually learn about the Priorities, to their growing horror. The List lacks the intricate research and detective work that heroes in similar thrillers engage in to uncover sinister plots. Instead, Brent and Hank are relatively passive characters for much of the book, which is the novel’s biggest weakness. In place of sleuthing, readers get a tepid romance between Brent and Hank’s daughter, the high school girlfriend he left behind years earlier when he moved to Atlanta. Their rekindled relationship reads like a listless, mediocre soap opera.

It’s not until the three-quarter mark of The List that the battle lines are fully drawn, and the story kicks into high gear. The last chapters have several well-written suspense scenes, as the action turns into a battle of wits and a chase in terrible weather in the county’s backwoods. This action is quite cinematic, and I can easily imagine the book becoming a successful movie. Readers have to wait over 300 pages before getting to “the good stuff,” but the wait will be worth it for genre fans.

Although the first part of The List lacks the action and excitement of its conclusion, I found it more interesting than the latter sections for a different reason. The author explains in a Writer’s Note at the end of the story that he originally wrote The List in 1992, then put it away for three decades before revising and updating it for publication recently. As he notes, John Grisham’s The Firm was an obvious influence on this novel. However, I’m sure he had the idea of the villains’ warped scheme from the beginning. The author was a practicing attorney for years before becoming a writer, and his discussions of the collective bargaining process and corporate inner workings are authentic. This type of material is usually quite dull, but the author makes it fascinating by using it as a backdrop for the villains’ complete sociopathy. They are thoroughly repulsive but compelling to follow. Similarly, the detailed discussion of how the various murders were carried out reminded me of thrillers like The Day of the Jackal.

The bifurcated nature of the book’s storyline makes The List drag at times. Its protagonists aren’t very interesting as characters and have little to do for the first part of the book. The novel would have been better if Brent and Hank had been given more to do in a subplot. Still, The List is an entertaining thriller for fans of Grisham’s works and similar stories. The novel also has an air of plausibility as it’s not too far-fetched to imagine a real-life business operating similarly. I heartily recommend that suspense thriller fans make The List a part of this season’s reading list.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.