The Racketeer

Written by John Grisham

Narrated by JD Jackson

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 the USA only four active federal judges have been murdered.

Judge Raymond Fawcett just became number five.

His body was found in the small basement of a lakeside cabin he had built himself and frequently used on weekends. When he did not show up for a trial on Monday morning, his law clerks panicked, called the FBI, and in due course the agents found the crime scene. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies - Judge Fawcett and his young secretary.

I did not know Judge Fawcett, but I know who killed him, and why.

I am a lawyer, and I am in prison.

It's a long story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette UK Audio
• Release date: Nov 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781444730135

Reviews for The Racketeer

[rachel garrod · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great Grisham twist. Fast engaging writing like all of his books.

[tobinelliott · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Well, I think Grisham's finally done it. Unless he spits something out that gets positive reviews across the board, I'm pretty much done with reading anything else by him. His past four books--including this one--were passable at best and horrible at the worst. This one was horrible. My God, for the guy that plotted the tight thriller that was The Firm seems now to have no concept of pacing anymore. He brings up a character, has him arrested, then essentially forgets him for half the book. At one point, one character has to get another one to uncover a hidden cache of gold bars. He knows there's two King snakes that live there, but chooses to not tell this to the woman he loves...and the snakes never show up. So why even mention them? Awful.

[andy_dimartino · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice quick read, fast paced shenanigans. Love John's novels!~!!

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Grisham is always good and the twist is satisfactory, and not entirely predictable, although clues are fairly laid.I think Grisham's primary purpose was to describe the incredibly wasteful, and vengeful, prison system.

[henrimoreaux · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this one, from the beginning it was peeling an onion and as the layers disappear you slowly get closer to what really happened to the murdered judge & why. Pacing was good as was the introduction of new pieces to the puzzle in a manner that doesn't overwhelm the reader as there was quite a few twists and turns in there, particularly towards the end of the novel.A masterfully executed prison 'escape' & heist novel.

[paperdust · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Upon reading the first chapter, I realised I read this book a few years ago. Skimmed through it to remind myself of the ending. I prefer this story to the last two Grishams read because there's a plot twist involving an ex-lawyer turned prisoner turned criminal informant; and Grisham seems to have toned down his use of cliche stereotype prejudicial language somewhat.

[carolee888 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Racketeer starts out a dull money laundering story with Malcolm Bannister being wrongfully convicted. He is a 43 year old black lawyer who recently became a partner in a firm. He takes the heat for the firm, his wife divorces him and later married someone else. He lost contact with his 8 year old son.He has monthly visits from his father who scolds him and is ashamed of him. His mother died from a drunk driver accident. He thinks that his real crime was "picking the wrong client". I never felt any sympathy for him through the whole story. He does not feel remorse and even though he provides free legal help for the inmates, I still did not connect with him.The judge who sent Malcolm Bannister is crooked. He is richer than his job as a federal judge allows. He only makes &174,000 a year and has a very secluded cabin. He gives lavish parties. But he has been supplement his supplement with gains that are not legal. The judge is shot and then burned along with a young Russian girl sitting beside him. Malcolm Bannister gets word to the FBI that he knows who the murderer. It takes some time to convince them. When they accept that he may be telling the truth, the FBI give him the sweetheart deal that he wants. That includes getting him into the Witness Protection Program. Then the book twists and my interest fell like a piece of lead. It is a little complicated after that but I am soon wishing the story was over. To me this book is not up to Grisham's previous book. It falls below the standard that he set.

[starkravingmad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quick read, interesting but far fetched plot

[chellebearss · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another great novel from Grisham. This was creative and very enjoyable. He was overdue for a good one and pulled through! Kept me guessing until close to the end

[fernemysteryreader · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Somehow I expected more when I started reading this novel...I don't know what the more would be but as it continued I just wanted to finish reading - not because it was thrilling, not because it was riveting, merely so I could move on and read another novel by a different author.

[infjsarah · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very much a Grisham plot - put your main character in a seemingly impossible situation and watch how he gets out. Readable but bland.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Perhaps in another era, a trial was an exercise in the presentation of facts, the search for truth, and the finding of justice. Now a trial is a contest in which one side will win and the other side will lose. Each side expects the other to bend the rules or to cheat, so neither side plays fair. The truth is lost in the melee.”I have been a fan of John Grisham's work for quite a few years and have always preferred his legal novels over his other pieces of work. This novel is somewhat unusual in that Grisham does not write about a victim of the law as he normally does put instead concentrates on someone who is hell bent on flouting the law. There is no soapbox for him to stand on in this one even though it does open with a disbarred lawyer who finds himself in legal trouble. Malcolm Bannister, an ex-Marine and former lawyer was a small fish in a large haul undertaken by the FBI in an attempt to catch a bigger fish and is half-way through a 10-year sentence for violations he never knowingly committed. This novel revolves around one particular legal loophole called Rule 35 which allows a convicted felon to have his sentence commuted in return for “substantial assistance in investigating or prosecuting another person.” in doing so helping the authorities to solve an even bigger crime. This then is not a story about a miscarriage of courtroom justice, rather it is the story of a smart man who after spending five years honing his skills as a jail-house lawyer concocts an ingenious plot to get back at the legal establishment. Enter Raymond Fawcett, a federal judge who is murdered at his isolated weekend home along with his 'secretary' and their bodies found near to a large empty well-concealed safe which had mysterious contents.Now this is not a novel that will give the reader some earth shattering insight into the American legal system even though it does offer a potted guided tour of the various dubious tax havens dotted around the Caribbean. Instead it is a fast pace whodunit told from the point of the villain with the question being 'will he manage to get away with it?' That said it is well written and good to see Grisham return at least in part to his roots. A fast paced enjoyable read.

[khakimoose-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I feel in love with the story immediately, but later on (maybe 3/4 in!) I start thinking this is becoming too good to be true. Also he trusted Vanessa very quickly. At the end it made sense, but before the end something seemed off.

[oscarwilde87_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Malcolm Bannister is an ex-lawyer from Virginia who was sentenced to ten years of prison on a racketeering charge. Having served five of his ten years, he has established some credit among his inmates as a jailhouse lawyer. When a federal judge and his secretary are murdered in a cabin in the woods, Malcolm Bannister sees his chance to be released from prison due to invoking rule 35, the commutation of a sentence when the prisoner has information that leads to an indictment in an ongoing case. Bannister professes to have exactly that: he claims to know the name of the murderer of the federal judge and his secretary. He manages to make a deal with the FBI and go into witness protection to start a new life. While this story is interesting in itself, it is at this point when the novel really starts to become suspenseful as Malcolm Bannister starts acting in a way no one would have foreseen. There are many turns in the story that keep the action alive and the reader guessing at what might happen next.The novel is written from a first-person perpsective and starts with the sentence "I am a lawyer, and I am in prison. It's a long story." And when that long story is told I as a reader started to feel that there is something fishy about this character. As I am always a little suspicious what a first-person narrator tells me I started suspecting foul play with Malcolm Bannister right from the start. I can safely say that I was not wrong, without giving away the surprise element of the story. John Grisham uses narrative perspective nicely to strengthen the impact of the story he is telling. All in all, a very gripping read. 4 stars.

[skraft001 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the spirit of The Firm with a fantastic scheme that has been contrived by Macolm Bannister / Max Reed. I got frustrated when the plot jarringly shifted to Nathan Cooley -- there was not the reminder reference of being someone who asked for his legal help while in federal prison. The scheme though is brilliant. Was Vanessa in on it? Seems like not, but had to have been.

[tonifgmamtc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars

Malcolm is very smart. I really liked how he worked everything out. I did figure a lot of what was happening out ahead of time and feel that some of the people he tricked should have been a little quicker on the uptake. Definitely entertaining.

[jothebookgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When a federal judge named Raymond Fawcett is found murdered in his isolated mountain cabin, things get intense. The most important question is why did a judge of very modest means need the large state-of-the-art safe that was found hidden behind a bookcase emptied of its contents?

The judge's young secretary/lover who was found tortured and murdered beside him. The assumption is that the killers tortured her to force the judge to open the safe before killing the two of them.

Since Fawcett is only the fifth active federal judge ever to have been murdered, the F.B.I. assembles a huge task force to track down the killer or killers, but the task force is virtually at a standstill. No one has any idea what might have been in the judge's safe and the careful killers left no trace of themselves behind. There are no witnesses, no clues of any kind, and no real suspects.

Enter disbarred attorney Malcolm Bannister sitting in a federal prison camp near Frostburg, Maryland, with five years left on a ten-year senence. Bannister is actually an innocent victim who got caught up in a net thrown by an ambitious prosecuting attorney who abused the RICO statues to convict him. While in prison Bannister has been using his time wisely and now he has cooked up an intricate plan that could change his life forever. He knows what was in the safe and who killed Judge Fawcett to get it.

Through the warden, Bannister contacts the F.B.I. and offers to make a trade: his freedom for the information he possesses. His offer sets off a great game of cat-and-mouse between Bannister and the authorities.

There's a significant turn in the action that occurs about halfway through making you feel as if you might be reading a different book with the same characters. Grisham as usual pulls it all together in the end which always satisfies this reader. BUT i did not see the ending coming.

[400mom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a perfect book to read at the lake for the beginning of summer. It moved right along, had interesting characters and some plot twists that I didn't expect.

[mhanover10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was enjoyable. It kept you guessing on what Malcolm was saying really was the truth. You don't really get to know the characters much and it did leave one of the characters kind of hanging. Other than that it was a page turner and fast paced. A typical Grisham book worth reading.

[debavp · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My in-laws insisted I read this as I have avoided Grisham's from the start. This did not change my mind. I had no problem with the writing, just the plot. Not very interesting. 

[dickmanikowski · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have fond memories of several John Grisham novels. This isn't one of them.

[johnwbeha · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The most disappointing Grisham I have read to date. It starts well enough with the usual detailed critique of part of the US justice system; this time it is federal courts and prisons and witness protection. The description of US marshals transporting prisoners around the nation is quite horrifying.
But then, about halfway through it turns into a "caper" and, I feel, becomes loose and rather sloppy. I started out with some sympathy for the lead character, but this vanished once he left prison. Grisham himself admits to laziness in his acknowledgement a. He probably meant it in a different way, but I would use it as a negative. But nothing has/will stop it selling in container loads,
I don't make a particular point of reading Grisham, but this popped up cheap on Amazon. It won't change my future choices one way or another.

[buffalogr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Racketeer is yet another thriller from John Grisham. The story is Grisham-twisty and keeps you wondering who really did the deed. The characters are engrossing and all of them wouldn't find suburbia a bucket of fun...even the dead guy. Grisham even takes on some social angles, albeit tangentially--maybe the whole book is a social commentary?

[nyiper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This John Grisham was a little different---I wasn't sure I really liked "Malcolm" and then, with all the ups, downs and sideways of the story. Yes, the ending provided the answers and as even the author's note explained, this was more than ever entirely a work of fiction---no research whatsoever! Given that, it was another good work from Grisham, but not one of my favorites.

[scottoglesby · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

For the last several years I've stuck to literary and highly reviewed books of any genre because there are just too many great books out there and not enough time to read them all. This time though, I felt like a nice, easy paperback. John Grisham is not a hack (A Time to Kill and The Firm were brilliant), and not as much of a sell-out as James Patterson (at least he writes his own books), so I thought that The Racketeer might be a quick weekend read.

It wasn't the worst book ever written but it wasn't great either. The writing was okay, the plot was creative but not in the least bit believable, and, as Grisham himself admits, the research was nonexistent.

There’s no need to go over the plot again since it’s been done many times over on this site and elsewhere. But I feel an overwhelming need to point out the plot holes, absurd generalizations and utter impossibilities in this book.

Spoilers to follow.

A black drug trafficker, from a black drug trafficking family, that is caught with a van-load of pure cocaine, does NOT end up in a federal “day spa” for white collar criminals. Never.

Quinn’s sister who has stayed away from the family business her entire life, does not decide to embark upon a criminal conspiracy to kidnap and rob a meth dealer/killer after making eye contact with a prison inmate from across the room.

Max/Malcolm slipped four kilos of coke into Nathan Cooley’s backpack. FOUR KILOS! One does not simply slip four kilos of coke anywhere. A few ounces would have done the job. Four kilos would have cost $80 to $120 thousand dollars. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has four kilos of pure cocaine lying around in case somebody needs to be framed.

When they land in Jamaica with Nathan’s ninety kilos, an AK-47 , a grenade launcher and a harem of white women to be sold into slavery, the Jamaican authorities let Max/Malcolm walk away. They detain the pilots and the plane because something something Caribbean corruption but they have no interest in the man who chartered the flight. Max/Malcolm even gets to visit Cooley in jail because… Jamaica.

The best line of the book. A Jamaican authority interviewing Nathan Cooley asks him about the FOUR KILOS of pure cocaine, “Was it all for personal consumption or did you intend to sell some of it to other rich Americans?” –That line sums up this books for me.

Bannister had extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance to the point that he is no longer recognizable to anyone from his old life, including people he lived with in prison. BUT… he was able to enter the country with his old passport because a white customs officer thinks “we all look the same.”

I have to stop there before my head explodes. But I can’t, not yet.

Grisham’s other huge mistake was introducing Nathan Cooley as a sympathetic character. You feel bad for him from the beginning. He had little choice in the life he lived. His family pushed him into a lifestyle and that was all he knew. Then his brother was murdered and he went to jail. When we met Cooley he had actually turned his life around and was doing well. In the last couple pages we learn that he killed the judge and his girlfriend. That does little to avoid the human empathy that a normal person (or a fleshed out character) would feel for someone that did absolutely nothing to them personally. That’s just not how human nature works. If Grisham’s Max/Bannister has no empathy or compassion for a man whom he just kidnapped, set up, had tortured for his own personal gain, and then sold to the US for immunity (and gold, gold I say) once again, then Max/Bannister is the worst monster in this book by far. I don’t’ believe that was the protagonist Grisham was going for.

Grisham’s best books worked for two reasons. They were written with a tremendous amount of heart and they relied upon his expertise as a lawyer. I believe he wrote this book because his agent told him to and to make more money. Probably even enough money to buy four kilos of cocaine and enjoy a fun-filled weekend in the sun.

[likos77_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Solider Roman von Grisham, bei der ich aber leider die alte Spannung vermisse. Der Autor scheint in letzter Zeit eher dokumentarische Sachen zu schreiben. Verbesserungsbedarf vorhanden.

[sandra.k.heinzman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I listened to it on CD and enjoyed it. I think it would make a good movie, and the actor who narrated the book should play Bannister!

[alincolnnut · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Racketeer is yet another annual legal thriller from the prolific John Grisham. A federal judge is murdered, and authorities struggle to understand a motive or the details of the crime. However, Malcolm Bannister, a former lawyer currently in federal prison, claims to know the identity of the killer and the motive. Of course, he would like to trade this information for his release.Bannister narrates the entire tale, and proves to be an intriguing and beguiling storyteller. In Grisham's capable hands, the action is quick-paced and well-plotted. Unfortunately, a couple of key twists are more outlandish than normal for Grisham. Placing incredulity aside, though, the novel is another satisfying entry by Grisham in his own particular writing niche.

[sharoncville3579 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing story! Keeps you guessing from beginning to end.

[dom76-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Racketerr reminds me a little bit of one of his old ones The Partner which is one of my favorite. keeps you guessing through the book. I recommend to all the John Grisham fan.