Some “lawyer books” present a noble, highly principled litigator who enters the courtroom to fight for truth, justice, and the American Way. A kind of Superman with a degree from Harvard Law. That ain’t Sebastian Rudd, the protagonist in John Grisham’s Rogue Lawyer (2015, 388 pages in paperback edition). At best, Rudd is a cynical antihero who is far more comfortable in the company of thieves and muggers than among cops and other law-enforcement officials. He operates in the gray areas around pesky legalities and acceptable social folkways.
He doesn’t advertise or even have a listing anywhere as an attorney. Unlike his office-bound colleagues, he operates out of a bulletproof van, which features the essentials of a living space: nice leather furniture, fridge and microwave, bar, and Wi-Fi. And he’s got a big-muscled and heavily armed chauffer. His driver is his bodyguard, law clerk, golf caddie, and confidant. And he has a lesbian ex-wife named Ava who is also a lawyer. Ava named their son Starcher, and she maneuvered the court to award Rudd only a 36-hour visitation period per month.
Rudd takes cases that no one else will touch. His client are often truly despicable people: a drug-addicted youth who is believed to be a member of a satanic cult, a convicted death-row inmate, and a man who has been arrested for shooting a member of a SWAT team. Rudd’s representation of them is consistent with his firm belief that the legal system is corrupt.
Like the protagonist, the book itself is somewhat unconventional. The first few chapters read as if they are separate short stories. One early chapter is even devoted to an introduction to MMA cage fighting, and — as I should have suspected from the get-go — Rudd owns a percentage of one of the cage fighters. Furthermore, instead of the usual plot that involves a lawyer battling a single case, Rudd handles multiple cases, each with its own outcome, which is not always predictable.
This episodic approach is less cohesive than the more common linear story-telling, but it is also more intriguing. Grisham does a great job of constructing a milieu of moral ambiguity that keeps the reader rooting for the legal rebel, in spite of Rudd’s atypical methods and life-style. For example, he sleeps in a different hotel room every week because “There are plenty of people who’d like to kill me right now.”
If there is a single thread that sort of prevails as the main plot, it is the case of Gardy. Rudd leads us to believe that Gardy belongs to a satanic cult and has raped and killed two young girls. Yet the book snakes through Rudd’s other cases: the Frenfros, Link Scanlon, the Kemps, and Zapate. By the way, Tadeo Zapate is his MMA cage fighter who has beaten the referee to death when he declared his opponent to be the winner of the fight.
If, like me, you’re a Grisham fan, don’t miss this one.
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Jim Glynn may be contacted at j_glynn@att.net.