The Judge’s List by John Grisham

While the FBI theorizes that most serial killers take their victims at random, The Judge’s List, the latest by master crime thriller writer John Grisham being published October 19, contains the names of all those people in his 40-some years who have wronged a judge in fictional Chavez County, Florida.

Slaying his tormentors in Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, His Honor Ross Bannick meticulously uses gloves and may have altered his fingerprints, leaves no prints, hairs, fibers, or blood behind, and knows forensics, police procedure, and law.

So far, according to her sleuthing, Jeri Crosby, the daughter of one of Bannick’s victims, has theorized the man has taken eight lives over 23 years in seven Southern states, one of them being Florida. Because attorney Lacy Stoltz has successfully investigated one crooked judge in her job at the fictional Florida Board on Judicial Conduct (FBJC) as detailed in Grisham’s The Whistler, she becomes the recipient of all the documentation that Jeri has collected.

 

Once Crosby files a complaint with the FBJC, Stoltz and her team dishearteningly begin the investigation from their office in Tallahassee because theories are one thing, proof is another. The case hinges on proof, of which there is none, until the Mississippi investigation yields a partial thumb print. However, the investigators cannot subpoena a warrant to search unless they get the FBI to convince a federal magistrate to issue a search warrant. They cannot arrest Bannick until there is a match of prints or some other proof.

 

Stoltz and her team are a step ahead with knowing the identity of the killer judge, but how will they prove the case with no evidence? How will they stay off the judge’s list as they close in on him?

John Grisham first blew readers away with A Time to Kill, which began the path that would make him king of the modern legal thriller. He knows of what he writes having worked 60–70-hour weeks in a Mississippi law practice. The Judge’s List is Grisham at his finest.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 29, 2021.

I would like to thank Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.