The Racketeer (novel)

The Racketeer

First edition cover
Author	John Grisham
Country	U.S.
Language	English
Genre	Legal thriller
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	October 23, 2012
Preceded by	Calico Joe
Followed by	Sycamore Row

The Racketeer is a legal thriller novel written by John Grisham that was released on October 23, 2012 by Doubleday with an initial printing of 1.5 million copies. It was one of the best selling books of 2012 and spent several weeks atop various best seller lists.

The protagonist Malcolm Bannister, an African American and former United States Marine, had been an attorney in a modest Virginia small-town law firm. A real estate transaction which he undertook in good faith turned out to have involved the purchase of a secluded hunting lodge where a crooked Capitol Hill lobbyist invited corrupt Congressmen for booze and drug-fueled orgies with underage girls. When the scandal was exposed, Bannister was caught up in a large FBI sweep, and his name was added to many others on a 100-page racketeering charge sheet as his protestations of innocence were ignored. He was charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), convicted, and given a 10-year prison term. The plot starts five years later with Bannister half way through his term; he has since been disbarred, divorced by his wife, lost contact with his son, and is nursing a bitter grudge against the Federal Government in general and the FBI in particular. He gets his chance when the brutal murder of a federal judge, Judge Fawcett, and of the judge's mistress makes headlines in the media, and the FBI investigation goes nowhere. Bannister knows the killer's identity and motive, what the judge's safe had contained, as well as the judge's hidden corruption.

He convinces the FBI to offer him a deal which will set him free as well as make him a member of the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, in return for information leading to the indictment of the murderer. He tells the FBI that Quinn Rucker, a drug dealer he met in prison, had escaped and murdered Judge Fawcett as revenge for a failed bribery attempt in which the judge took half a million dollars but didn't follow through on his end of the deal. He provides information on the whereabouts of Quinn, who is arrested, confesses to the crime, and is indicted. However, it is revealed later that Quinn is not the murderer, and Bannister is aware of this.