by John Grisham
Part of The Whistler
First published 2016
Lacy Stoltz has spent nine years handling complaints for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. Most of her cases come down to incompetence, not crime. Then a disbarred lawyer named Greg Myers walks in with a different kind of file. He says a sitting Florida judge has pocketed more money through corruption than any other judge in American history. The source is a massive casino built on Native American land, financed by the Coast Mafia, which skims cash every month while the judge collects her cut and keeps her courtroom quiet. Greg represents a whistleblower who wants to expose the whole arrangement and collect the reward Florida law allows. Lacy is a lawyer, not a detective. She investigates misconduct on paper, through hearings and filings. But this case is not paperwork. The deeper she pushes, the clearer it becomes that the people protecting this judge will not stop at professional pressure. Lacy has to decide how far she is willing to go, knowing that going too far might get her killed.
Genres: american-fiction, crime, adult-fiction, thriller, mystery-thriller, legal-thriller
Vibes: fast-paced, gritty, high-stakes, suspenseful, tension-filled
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, corruption-exposed, ordinary-person-in-extraordinary-circumstances
Setting: Florida, Native American land
Period: Contemporary
424 pages · Kindle Edition · Vintage
Content warnings: murder, violence