New, young attorney, Rudy Baylor, who hasn't passed the bar exam lucks into a monster of a bad faith against an insurance company.

Great Benefit has denied coverage of a life-saving bone marrow transplant for a young boy dying of leukemia. Baylor can't officially accept the case at first, because he hasn't even passed his bar exam, leading readers on Rudy's journey to find a law firm to represent the client and allow him to work on the case, as well as support him while he passes the bar exam. Meanwhile, he runs into a nice, possibly very wealthy old lady who becomes his landlord and wants him to redraft her will. And the third subplot in this rousing tale involves convincing a young battered wife that Rudy meets in the hospital that she needs to divorce her husband before he kills her.

This tale is a delight to read, with scenes that sparkle with energy. Unlike Grisham's last tale in publishing order, THE CHAMBER, I never felt anxious to see the story end or felt like he was padding the story for a certain word count. This has plenty of courtroom drama, some great characterization and interesting subplots and secondary characters. My favorite secondary character was Deck, the paralawyer as he's defined, a sort of hopeless, yet devious shyster who plays an attorney but isn't one because he's failed the bar exam "five or six times."

About the only thing that keeps this story from being a perfect read for me like Grisham's A TIME TO KILL is that we never really get to learn enough about the antagonists. Who are these evil corporate types behind Great Benefit insurance company beyond stereotypes? We learn about them through their actions during the trial, which makes them appear uber-sleazy, but there feels like something deeper is left out that I was curious to learn. Surely they had more soul than as portrayed? A little boy was killed based on their company's actions. No remorse from any of them?

This is a fantastic story and excellent example of a solid first person narrative. Everything is told from Rudy Baylor's point of view. This is easily my second favorite Grisham book I've read to date and the first in publishing order that he used first person point of view.

8,234 Kindle locations. Approximately 578 pages.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Rainmaker   from Amazon.Com!

Created Aug 13, 2013 at 6:10pm • Submit your own review...