Leave it to John Grisham to turn a story that pivots on the technical language of an insurance policy into a riveting court room drama! One of his best.I would've liked A more fleshed resolution to Miss Bertie's problems however.I haven't read a Grisham book since The Runaway Jury in 1997. This book made me want to go back and read his other works to see what I might have missed.

This book shouldn't be as enjoyable as it is. It is pure revenge/rescue fantasy with barely any actual story. Bad things happen for a reason: to make Rudy Baylors life better. Early on, so this isnt much of a spoiler, you get the sense that Rudy Baylor is very privileged, despite his upbringing: no matter what happens, he will always come out on top. There isnt even the traditional second-act setback. There are hints of potential setbacks, potential tricks the defense could be playing on Baylor and his team, only one of which ends up happening, and it is so quickly turned around it doesnt count as a setback. Its only implications are good ones for the narrator. And there are even hints of potential setbacks by Baylors partner, serious ones that never actually materialize. There are times I almost think Shifflet is an imaginary friend.Part of this may actually be the way Grisham writes the narrator: he wants to think of himself as a good, ethical lawyer, but hes stuck in a very unethical firm in a very unethical profession. He describes hanging out at a local hospital, studying for the bar and at the same time scouting out clients to pounce on. He describes some potential clients and their injuries, and then lets us believe that he has chosen the high road and does not recruit them.And then he lets slip that hes only brought in a handful of clients to the firm. But he hasnt told us any of the clients hes brought in. Most likely, it was those hospital patients who he didnt tell us he recruited but who he also didnt tell us he didnt recruit them.He also doesnt seem to pick up on his partners likely issues, even though its pretty obvious he has some.Wondering what, if anything, Baylor is hiding from us in order to look like a nicer person is part of what makes this more interesting than it should be.Interestingly, the title of the book applies more to a secondary character than to the main one: a rainmaker is a person whose associations bring in clients. Technically, a rainmaker in the legal profession is a person whose very presence causes clients to come to them, which applies to neither Rudy Baylor nor Deck Shifflet, but Deck clearly has connections that bring in meat-and-potatoes clients. He is, however, a mystery throughout the novel. One of the things that Grisham does very well here is tell a first-person narrative without going beyond his narrator. Deck is very clearly involved with some shady people, and may even be a (very minor spoiler) government informant. But Rudy Baylor never finds out, so we never find out.That is part of why, despite the lawyer fantasy in Rudy Baylor, I kept reading. Throughout the book, I was very interested in reading further, at the same time that I was aware that I should be bored out out of my skull.

This is one of my 2 favorite Grisham novelsdont bother with the movie, its a campy mess of bad acting and awful direction IMHO (actually, the movie is so bad that it is occasionally amusing).I love courtroom drama. RAINMAKER pits the law student who hasnt even passed the bar yet and his paralawyer against the Big Bad Insurance Company that routinely denies EVERY claim made it againstinitially. Grisham is at the top of his game here; most of his novels are great first-reads (then give it a toss), but this one has pulled me back in for many re-reads. The out-of-court action keeps veering off into sidebars that ultimately tie-in to this David versus Goliath tale. In court David nukes the giant, doesnt just bang him in the forehead, which is perhaps a weakness in this novel; but the Baddies manage to slither out of judgment by declaring bankruptcy. The hero gets the girl, murders her abusive husband and gets away with it, kills a naughty insurance company, and retires from the law after a 1-0 lifetime score and a $500,000,000.00 victory. Whats not to like? @hg47