Justice done, albeit outside the law

The Racketeer

Hodder & Stoughton

352 pages, £19.99

(Available at all Jashanmal book stores)

In the afterword to his latest legal thriller, fabled novelist John Grisham humbly concedes: “This is indeed a work of fiction, and more so than usual. Almost nothing in the previous 340 pages is based on reality. Research, hardly a priority, was rarely called upon. Accuracy was not deemed crucial. Long paragraphs of fiction were used to avoid looking up facts.” Indeed, as long as author and reader both agree that this is an implausible plot, the book is fun.

Malcolm Bannister is an ex-United States marine and African-American small-town lawyer. His beautiful little world is shattered when he is wrongly convicted in a money-laundering plot involving the crooked lobbyist Barry the Backhander, and sent to jail. He is serving a ten-year sentence and is bitter at the government and the justice system, which he blames for having robbed him of all he had. Within weeks of his incarceration, his loving wife goes from being a supportive partner to a fleeing victim. His son, who was only 6 at the time Mal went to jail, now calls someone else Daddy.

While Mal is still in the pen having served five years, Raymond Fawcett becomes only the fifth federal judge in US history to be killed, bumped off with two to the head at his lakeside cabin. The body of his young and attractive secretary, bearing torture marks, is also found nearby. And there is a huge, open safe, lying empty.

Rule 35 of the US Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allows the sentence of a convict to be commuted if he or she provides “substantial assistance in investigating or prosecuting another person”. And Mal thinks he knows who killed the old man and his young employee. He also knows the motives of the killer or killers. He cuts a deal with the federal authorities (he is a lawyer, remember?): In exchange for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer(s), he demands immediate release, entry into the US government’s Witness Protection programme with plastic surgery and a new identity, and the cash reward of $150,000 (Dh550,500) that has been announced for information on the judge’s killing. The FBI’s investigation so far has led nowhere, and they are feeling the heat. Despite their misgivings about the jailed lawyer’s claims, they eventually take the bait.

Mal’s hatred of the Feds is palpable throughout the novel. And it is the fool he makes out of the mighty FBI that is one of the most entertaining (and improbable) aspects of the book.

Once out, he enjoys the hospitality of Uncle Sam for a while but gives the Feds the slip citing their own admission that his cover has been blown. This, the FBI has discovered, following wiretapped phone conversations between the arrested drug dealer nailed by Mal for the judge’s murder and some of the gangster’s associates. The bad guys are looking for Malcolm Bannister.

From here on, Mal indulges in a series of actions — from taking multiple flights in private jets to exotic islands in the Caribbean to posing as a documentary filmmaker — that are intriguing and make you turn the pages pretty fast. All this while the FBI is feverishly trying to track him down. But there is much more to Mal than meets the eye, and one gets this feeling throughout the second part of the novel. And the significance of his escapades become clear in a long last chapter, in which the author deftly connects all the dots.

Mal is an unlikely hero. But the reader is inclined to feel for the guy even as he goes about conning the government and breaking the law. This is perhaps because the law has been unfair to Mal in the first place, who has lost his honour, his family, his career as a result of a miscarriage of justice. And has spent five horrible years in prison. You end up cheering for Mal as he tricks the federal authorities every step of the way.

While “The Racketeer” pales in comparison to Grisham’s best — “The Firm”, “The Pelican Brief”, “A Time to Kill” — it still signals the master storyteller’s return to form. It is a jolly good read when taken with a fistful of salt.