Read more
As an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, Lacy Stoltz sees plenty of corruption among the men and women elected to the bench. Stoltz took on a crime syndicate that was paying millions to a crooked judge. Now, the crimes are even worse. The man hiding behind the black robe is not taking bribes--but he may be taking lives.
About the author
John Grisham is the author of numerous #1 bestsellers, including
The Firm, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Innocent Man, The Whistler, The Boys from Biloxi, and many more. His books have been translated into nearly fifty languages. Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system. He lives on a farm in central Virginia.
Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham returns to Florida, where The Whistler’s Lacy Stoltz takes on a cold case that reveals a judge’s darkest secrets.
“One of the best crime reads of the year . . . a world-class shocker, worth staying up all night to finish.”—The Wall Street Journal
In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change.
Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.
The man Jeri holds responsible for all these deaths is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.
He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction.
But the man keeps a record of all his victims and targets, people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. Lacy must work to take him down, while somehow keeping her name off his list.
Additional text
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Mysteries of the Year
