The Racketeer, by John Grisham

John Grisham has done it again.  He has cranked out another yarn to keep you awake turning the pages late into the night.  With much that will be familiar to Grisham's readers, The Racketeer tells the story of disillusionment with the legal system, revenge, and a quest for personal redemption.  Grisham does take a turn that I didn't expect, with a con job worthy of a David Mamet film.

Malcolm Bannister made the mistake of naively taking the wrong client and got roped into a major racketeering case.  Though he did nothing wrong (intentionally, anyway), he ended up doing time in a federal prison, where he gained a reputation among inmates as a great jailhouse lawyer.  Using information gleaned from other inmates, he offers information about the murder of a federal judge in exchange for his freedom.  The feds give him a cash reward and a new identity, and Bannister begins his plot in earnest.

Bannister, who I believe is Grisham's first African-American main character, has the brains and devious wits of many of his other characters.  The Racketeer itself has the brains but quite a bit more wit (in various senses of the word) than other Grisham novels.  I knew there was something fishy going on, and at first blamed it on the stupid story.  I should have known better; Grisham puts it all together with flair.

Grisham doesn't write for high-brow literary meat, but as a story teller.  He spins a tasty yarn here that, more so than many of his other books, will satisfy your literary sweet tooth.

The Color of Law, by Mark Gimenez

Long time followers of the Reading Glutton will recall that in 2010 I reviewed a couple of novels by Mark Gimenez, a lawyer-turned-author who lives right here in the Fort Worth area.  I recently re-read his first book, The Color of Law, which I first saw reviewed in Texas Monthly when it was released in 2005.

As I noted in my other reviews (here and here), Gimenez falls solidly in the same legal fiction genre as John Grisham, but he tells a much better story than Grisham.  I like Grisham (see my recent review of Grisham's latest here).  I read all his books and will likely continue to do so as he churns them out.  But they are not as satisfying and substantial as Gimenez's.

The Color of Law, Gimenez's debut novel, set the standard for his later works.  Here we meet A. Scott Finney, a lawyer in high-powered Dallas law firm, making big bucks representing Dallas's big bucks clients.  He grew up poor, but was a football star at exclusive Highland Park High School and posh S.M.U.  Remembered for his on-the-field heroics, he has managed to become a part of the establishment he always looked up to: he has the Highland Park mansion, trophy wife, expensive sports car, club memberships, the whole bit.

All of this perfection begins to fall apart when he is appointed to defend--I know this sounds a little over the top--a black prostitute accused of murdering the son of a Highland Park denizen.  Of course, the prostitute turns out to be a great mom in spite of her circumstances, and the victim is a spoiled, good-for-nothing playboy whose powerful father, a U.S. senator, is a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, and Finney goes through a rapid conversion from a rich lawyer driven by money to a lawyer with integrity, driven by justice.

Maybe there is some stereotyping here, and maybe the morality is a little bit too black and white, but none of that stops Gimenez from telling a richly satisfying story.  Highly recommended!

The Litigators, by John Grisham

I think I have read every one of John Grisham's novels.  Some are better than others, but I have enjoyed them all.  The Litigators has some of the elements that make Grisham fun to read: the idealistic young lawyer, the bashing of big firms and big companies, the little guy getting the win.  But I have to say, even though I enjoyed it, I kept asking myself why.

I don't know if this is a criticism or an observation, but after the first few chapters, The Litigators reads more like an account of an actual case.  You know, one of those readable but ultimately pretty dry nonfiction works that tell the story of a case from the news or from history?  It starts out on an entertaining note.  David Zinc, sick of working 80 hours a week in a big firm making deals on foreign fixed income instruments, flips out, gets drunk, and, after seeing an ad on a bus for an ambulance-chasing law firm, shows up there looking for a job.  He, along with the two colorful and ethically-challenged partners, gets involved in a class action suit against a giant pharmaceutical company.

Once that case, which fills most of the book, gets going, Grisham's lawyer takes over for his storyteller.  This certainly may be his intent.  If there's a good case in real life, with a good story behind it, I would want Grisham to write that book.  It's generally considered a good thing when a work of non-fiction reads like a work of fiction.  But I would counter that when a work of fiction sounds like a work of non-fiction, perhaps a bit more life needed to be injected into the story.

Yeah, I know, that sounds pretty shallow and petty, but that's my opinion.  Two things: Grisham fans will like The Litigators, and, in spite of my criticism, I'll probably read his next book as soon as it's released.

The Confession, by John Grisham

In The Confession, Grisham has brought together his straight-forward, page-turning suspenseful style, a la The Firm with the anti-death penalty, justice system reforming crusade of The Innocent Man.  The stalwart pro-death penalty advocate may not enjoy this book, but if you have any sympathy at all for the Innocence Project, which works to "free the staggering numbers of innocent people who remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment," and for people who are wrongly convicted of crimes, you will appreciate the tone and message of The Confession.

The Confession is the page-turner Grisham fans have come to expect from him.  The story alone doesn't rank as one of Grisham's best, but that's like saying one of Beethoven's symphonies isn't one of his best.  The Confession is still a great story.  The premise is rather simple: Travis Boyette, a convicted rapist and all around nasty guy, reads that a Donte Drumm is about to be executed for the murder of a cheerleader from Drumm's school.  Boyette remembers her well: he stalked her, kidnapped her, raped her, and murdered her, and got away with it.  His convictions were for other crimes.  Boyette tells his story to an earnest minister, who make it his mission to stop Drumm's execution.

As is Grisham's style, the plot is straightforward, seemingly predictable, but with just enough surprises to keep the reader interested.  The case against Drumm seems ludicrously flimsy, but I'm sure Grisham was inspired by actual cases, in which an outside observer would be dumbstruck to learn that someone was convicted on such flimsy evidence.  With the omniscient author's perspective, Grisham builds a firm case for the wrongfulness of Drumm's conviction.  On those grounds, The Confession becomes an entertaining, highly readable, anti-death-penalty argument.

Maybe I'm just more aware, having read this book, but it seems like there are more and more examples of people wrongfully convicted of crimes.  One day when I was almost finished with the book, the Star-Telegram ran a front-page article about a man who has already been executed, but whose guilt has been called into question because a hair found at the scene of the crime--the sole piece of physical evidence tying him to the crime--turned out not to be his.  On the same day, one of the S-T editors wrote an editorial stating that Texas could actually save money by abolishing the death penalty, because the expense of the automatic appeals process far exceeds the expense of housing a prisoner for life.  Arguments for the deterrent quality of the death penalty fade in the face of evidence that it is, even in only in a small minority of cases, wrongfully implemented.  From the perspective of justice, as well as economics, there's a strong argument that it simply doesn't make sense to have a death penalty.

Even with the strong-handed argument overshadowing the story, The Confession delivers.  Grisham fans will enjoy it; non fans will probably enjoy it, too.  For a "message" novel, it's definitely worth a read.