The Racketeer

Dates Read: January 2013
After hearing this book, I immediately added my name to the library's wait list - I was number 684. I knew it would be a while. Finally, around Christmas, it was my turn to read it. Yay! I've been busy with work so it wasn't until this week (of course, the due date) that I finally sat down and started ready it - and then three nights later I was done. I love Grisham's books because they have wonderfully short chapters (perfect for public transportation), are slow at first but then pick up the pace without you realizing it and before you know it your 150 pages in and don't want to put it down. This was another great Grisham book (with wonderfully surprising twists) and I'm glad it was finally my turn to read it! (And it was definitely worth the $2+ that I will owe in late fees.)

Summary: (from the amazon)
Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.

Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge’s untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland.

On paper, Malcolm’s situation isn’t looking too good these days, but he’s got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge’s body was found in his remote lakeside cabin. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied.

What was in the safe? The FBI would love to know. And Malcolm Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price—especially information as explosive as the sequence of events that led to Judge Fawcett’s death. And the Racketeer wasn’t born yesterday . . .

Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.