The Client

The protagonist, Mark Sway, is the character who drives the plot and its events. He is eleven years old, mistrustful, arrogant and predisposed to getting into trouble. Being such a young age, he is inexperienced and afraid which explains the fear he feels when he witnesses the lawyer of a famous Mobster, Barry Muldanno, commit suicide. Just before the lawyer shot himself, he told Mark a large secret. He told him that his client, Barry Muldanno, killed the senator and buried him in the lawyerпÑ--Ð...s garage. Mark knows these men are dangerous and seems to be in shock at what he has just witnessed, and now what he has been trusted to keep secret. Prosecutors are now willing to break all the rules to make him talk, and the mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. In fear of the life of his family, and his own, Marks decision to withhold valuable information serves to protect him while also dismantling justice.

Throughout the novel, Mark Sway is repeatedly questioned on the whereabouts of the body of the Senator. He has many opportunities to tell of this awful secret, but chooses not to in the protection of his own life. In Chapter 6, Mark has his first questioning with Officer Hardy. He asked him what he was doing in the forest with his brother, and slowly escaladed to asking what happened when he was dragged into the lawyerпÑ--Ð...s car. When this question came, Mark hit a stage of panic and tried to lie his way through it.

...