books that delight every page
How was the book?
Sometimes John Grisham gets it exactly right. The Racketeer joins the list ofA Time to Kill: A Novel,The Rainmaker, andThe Appealof lawyers' lawyer books that delight with every page.Meet Malcolm Bannister, age 43, African-American, and an inmate at a federal work camp in Frostburg Maryland. Five years ago, he was a lawyer in the town of Winchester Virginia, making somewhat of living along with two partners. Overzealous federal prosecutors indicted him for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, otherwise known as RICO, and when the dust had settled Bannister found himself on the wrong end of a ten year sentence. That Bannister's "crimes" were essentially illusory is beside the point. A jury, under the gun of the so-called "shotgun charge" read to deadlocked panels, convicted him and his appeals have run their course. Malcolm is gonna finish out his time, and then return to a world without his profession, wife and kid.There are only two things for an inmate with the skills of Bannister to do-practice a little jailhouse law and scheme to get out.The opportunity for the second comes with the murder of a United States District Judge in Roanoke. Killing a federal judge is a very serious offense. In fact only four sitting federal judges have been killed in our nation's history-all within the last thirty years. I actually appeared before one of those judges Robert Vance of the Eleventh Circuit. A classmate of mine from law school was appointed to represent his assassin and I followed his trial and conviction closely. So when I say as a trial lawyer in the federal courts for thirty seven years that this book is incredibly authentic, I have a substantial basis for that opinion. Lawyers reading this book will recognize the cast of characters from lawyers, inmates, U.S. Marshals, FBI agents, judges and corrections officers. It is absolutely spot on.It is also incredibly imaginative. Grisham always tells a good story, but this one is quite special. Pick it up today. 