The Rainmaker by John Grisham 598 Pages, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, $7.99 Review Score: *** out of *****
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The Rainmaker by John Grisham 598 pages, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, $7.99 Review score: *** out of ***** I've read all of John Grisham's books, at least all those that have come out in paperback (Grisham is not an author I buy in hardcover). I've even read The Pelican Brief, his worst novel, which has a silly plot and cardboard characters. With the exception of The Pelican Brief, I have found Grisham's novels enjoyable and he seems to be getting better over time. I thought that The Chamber, with its complex characters and blurred moral boundaries was excellent. Grisham's latest novel to hit paperback is The Rainmaker. The novel's central character, Rudy Baylor, a new graduate of Memphis State Law School. Memphis State is not a top law school and Rudy is a good, but not great student. Instead of a fast ticket to the upper middle class, Rudy finds that his law degree offers few employment opportunities. The job market for lawyers is bleak. In the end he is driven into association with a mob lawyer and an ambulance chaser. This is a far cry from the world of L.A. Law, where lawyers work on challenging cases while wearing designer suits. Perhaps if popular culture included fewer stories about heroic lawyers in Armani suits fighting the good fight, and more stories like The Rainmaker, there would be fewer lawyers. One of the last classes that Rudy takes before graduation is "Geezer Law" (Legal Problems of the Elderly). While visiting a senior citizen's center, Rudy meets Dot Black, whose son, Donny Ray, has terminal leukemia. The Blacks have a medical insurance policy which should have covered a bone marrow transplant from Donny Ray's twin brother. This would have saved Donny's life, but the insurance company denied coverage. Now it is too late and the cancer has reached a terminal stage. There is no question that this is a case of bad faith on the part of the insurance company, Great Benefit. Rudy takes the case and sues, going up against a high priced law firm. Grisham's story of David versus Goliath is well written. Stories like this are always a lot of fun. We may dislike lawyers, but we dislike insurance companies even more. The reader quickly feels that Rudy is a real person, with strenghts and weaknesses. The other characters are also well drawn and Grisham avoids stereotyping them. The book is, as they say on the cover blurbs, a page turner. I ripped right through it and thoroughly enjoyed it. There are flaws as well. A romantic interest is grafted on to the plot. Her character serves little purpose in the story. A cynic might believe that Grisham added her with an eye toward the movie that will almost certainly be made from the book. While the story is enjoyable, I have to wonder how factual the details are. A couple of months ago I read Jonathan Harr's book A Civil Action, which is an account of an actual law suit brought against the W.R. Grace Company, which poisoned the drinking water of a small town, Woburn, Massachusetts. A number of children and adults died of leukemia here too. In this case, a suit was brought by a fairly established and experienced trial lawyer. But it was an up hill battle all the way, which took years to resolve. In the end, the plaintiffs were forced to settle the suit out of court and the financial and emotional costs were huge. The plaintiff's lawyer was almost bankrupted by the cost of the suit and was emotionally burned out by the time it was finally settled. It is hard to imagine a broke, newly minted lawyer, like Rudy Baylor in The Rainmaker, having the resources to sue a large company. Ian Kaplan - 2/96 John Grisham tells the story of a young man barely out of law school who finds himself taking on one of the most powerful, corrupt, and ruthless companies in America -- and exposing a complex, multibillion-dollar insurance scam. In hs final semester of law school Rudy Baylor is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is there that he meets his first "clients," Dot and Buddy Black. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. While Rudy is at first skeptical, he soon realizes that the Blacks really have been shockingly mistreated by the huge company, and that he just may have stumbled upon one of the largest insurance frauds anyone's ever seen -- and one of the most lucrative and important cases in the history of civil litigation. The problem is, Rudy's flat broke, has no job, hasn't even passed the bar, and is about to go head-to-head with one of the best defense attorneys -- and powerful industries -- in America. Rudy Baylor is a law graduate from Memphis State Law School. He secures a position with a Memphis law firm, which he then loses when the firm is bought out by another larger firm. As one of the few members of his class without a job lined up, Rudy is forced to apply for part-time and poorly-paid law positions. He gets an offer from a large Memphis law firm, but it falls through before he has even begun. Desperate for a job, he reluctantly allows "Prince" Thomas, the crooked owner of a sleazy bar where he's been working part-time, to introduce him to J. Lyman "Bruiser" Stone, a ruthless but successful ambulance-chasing lawyer, who makes him an associate. But to earn his fee, Rudy is required to hunt for potential clients at the local hospital where he must pick up injury cases and sign them up. He is introduced to Deck Shifflet, a less- than-ethical former insurance assessor, now "paralawyer" (having graduated from law school but failing to pass the Bar examination after six tries). Rudy already has two cases which he passionately believes in. One case putting together a will for an old woman who becomes his new landlady after he is evicted from his former home, and another a case of insurance bad faith. He represents a poor family, Dot and Buddy Black whom he met through a class visit to a community center. The case could be worth several million dollars in damages, but his personal life is falling to pieces and he is about to declare himself bankrupt. With his employer about to be raided by the police and the FBI, he and Deck set up practice themselves and file suit on behalf of the Blacks, whose son Donny Ray is dying of leukemia but almost certainly could have been saved with a bone marrow transplant because he has an identical twin brother. This would almost certainly cure the boy due to the perfect genetic match. The procedure should have been covered and paid for by their insurance company, Great Benefit Life Insurance. Rudy, having just passed the bar exam, has never argued a case before a judge and jury - but he now finds himself up against a group of experienced and ruthless lawyers from a large firm, headed by Leo F. Drummond. It is daunting but he has several supporters and a sympathetic newly-appointed judge to sustain his commitment. Whilst preparing the case while waiting in the local hospital, he meets and later falls in love with Kelly Riker, a young battered wife healing from her latest injuries. Before the trial commences, the Blacks' son dies. The case goes to trial and Rudy uncovers a scheme Great Benefit ran throughout 1991 to deny every insurance claim submitted, regardless of validity. Great Benefit was playing on the odds that the insured would not consult an attorney. A former employee of Great Benefit testifies that the scheme generated an extra $40 million in revenue for the company. The trial ends with a plaintiff's verdict of $50.2 million which is somewhat symbolic because it is the total of the $200,000 transplant Donny Ray should have received, the $10 million Rudy originally sued for and the $40 million the scheme that killed Donny Ray generated. Great Benefit quickly declares itself bankrupt, thus allowing it to avoid paying the verdict. This starts a chain of further lawsuits as well as further financial catastrophes for the company and they ultimately go out of business. Thus, there is no payout for the grieving parents and no fee for Rudy, although Dot Black was never concerned with the money from the trial, so for her helping to put the company out of business represents an even greater victory. In fact she testified that if awarded any money from Great Benefit, she would donate all of it to the American Leukemia Society. During the Black trial, Rudy finds that Kelly is in hiding after another beating from her husband, Cliff, and is in the process of helping her get a divorce, but never gets the chance. Rudy ends up being caught by her violent husband while helping her retrieve items from her home. Cliff attempts to hit Rudy with his softball bat and threatens to kill him. Rudy gets the bat away from Cliff and strikes him with it. Kelly intervenes and tells him to leave. However, Cliff dies as a result of the injuries sustained, and Kelly allows herself to be charged with manslaughter to stop Rudy being prosecuted.