The Rainmaker: A Novel - Softcover

Grisham, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345531930 ISBN 13: 9780345531933

Publisher: Vintage, 2011

Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

It’s summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor’s shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn’t have a job or a prayer—except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it.

By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him. And suddenly he’s in over his head, plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuverings. A case that started small is exploding into a thunderous million-dollar war of nerves, skill, and outright violence—a fight that could cost one young lawyer his life, or turn him into the biggest rainmaker in the land.

About this title

Review

Michael Beck (The Golden Seal, Xanadu), who seems to be making a career out of reading books on audio (A Time to Kill, The Runaway Jury), has returned with John Grisham's The Rainmaker, bringing the backwoods of Tennessee's legal world to life. His sultry, southern drawl animates the world of Rudy Baylor, an out-of-luck, budding lawyer who has more things going against him than bedraggled, disaster-magnet Joe from Lil' Abner. The law firm that hired Baylor was gobbled up by a larger firm just three weeks before his graduation, and now he has no job and no chance of finding one. To make matters worse, when he gets home there's an eviction notice, a process server, and a lawsuit waiting for him. What's a bumbling baby-lawyer to do? Get a case and some cold hard cash--fast. Baylor stumbles upon two possible jackpots: A tight-lipped widow with millions squirreled away and a young man whose life is cut short by a negligent insurance company. Baylor gets in over his head and finds himself up against a pack of superpower attorneys; losing could cost him his life and winning would make him a rainmaker cum laude. Grisham's knack for making tedious legalities interesting, coupled with Beck's gift for shifting in and out character like a Mercedes roadster, makes for an exciting, entertaining listen. Running time: 360 minutes.

From the Publisher

"Grisham's sixth spellbinding novel of legal intrigue and corporate greed displays all of the intricate plotting, fast-paced action, humor, and suspense that have made him the most popular author of our time. In his first courtroom thriller since A Time To Kill, John Grisham tells the story of a young man barely out of law school who finds himself taking on one of the most powerful, corrupt, and ruthless companies in America -- and exposing a complex, multibillion-dollar insurance scam. In hs final semester of law school Rudy Baylor is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is there that he meets his first "clients," Dot and Buddy Black. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. While Rudy is at first skeptical, he soon realizes that the Blacks really have been shockingly mistreated by the huge company, and that he just may have stumbled upon one of the largest insurance frauds anyone's ever seen -- and one of the most lucrative and important cases in the history of civil litigation. The problem is, Rudy's flat broke, has no job, hasn't even passed the bar, and is about to go head-to-head with one of the best defense attorneys -- and powerful industries -- in America.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0345531930
• ISBN 13: 9780345531933
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 608