GENRE: Thriller
PUBLISHER: Hodder
NUMBER OF PAGES: 386
Malcolm Bannister is a lawyer. He is in prison.
Five years ago, the FBI set him up as the fall guy for a crime he did not know he was committing. He has exhausted every avenue of appeal, and any hope of acquittal.
Until now.
Judge Raymond Fawcett is found dead in a remote lakeside cabin. There are no witnesses, no fingerprints, no evidence. The investigation has no leads.
Bannister didn't know the judge. But he knows who killed him, and why.
It could be his ticket to freedom. And revenge ... {Back Cover Blurb}
I am a lawyer, and I am in prison. {First Sentence, Chapter 1}
As unsettling as it is, selecting a new name to be used for the rest of my life will be one of my easier decisions. Quite soon I'll be confronted with choices far more difficult - eyes, nose, lips, chin, home, job, family, history, and what kind of fictional childhood did I have? Where did I go to college and what did I study? Why am I single and have I been married? Children?
My mind is spinning. {Memorable Moment: Page 148}
MY THOUGHTS ... Given my enjoyment of crime novels and the protest of several friends who insisted this was an Author I simply HAD to read {though to be fair most of them agree that The Racketeer isn't up there as his best}, funnily enough I'd never read any of John Grisham's work ... that is until now.
What I'd describe not so much as an 'OK' read so much as an 'meh' read. If this is a typical example of the author's books, I can't say I see what all the fuss is about.
That there were none of the Plot intricacies that my friends/fellow bookworms spoke of as being synonymous with this author, disappointing. That there was no tension, no surprises, likewise. That the plot was implausible if not, at times, altogether unbelievable, that the plot lacked foreshadowing; that the author plucked information pertinent to the plot seemingly out of nowhere when it was convenient ... let's just say I'd expected better.
As for the characters ...
Oddly lacking in female characters {even for in a world arguably dominated by men} and, what mention there was of them, there was, rather disturbingly, the tendency to sexualise them. Other than that, despite the lengthy, often totally unnecessary backstories, largely unmemorable. Apart from main protagonist, Malcolm Bannister that is and, even then, in the main I can't say I found anything to really excite me about him other than at the point when I found myself positively seething at his actions which saw the torture and unjust incarceration of another character.
Maybe not the best introduction to the author's books {ideally I'd have rated it one and a half stars rather than two} but, then again, not totally put off; if my friends are to be believed there is one of his books out there that I'm bound to like.
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