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I realize this might sound crazy, but The Judge’s List is my first John Grisham book. This book features Lacy Stoltz, who has appeared in previous Grisham titles. Lacy is a lawyer who works as an investigator for a Florida state department that probes into allegations of misconduct by judges. It’s not the world’s most exciting job, and she’s been at it too long. She mulls her career options at the start of the book, worrying that she’s gone so far into this dead-end situation that there will be no escape.
Lacy’s office torpor is disrupted by the appearance of Jeri, a forty-something black college professor who is obsessed with finding the man who murdered her father two decades earlier. She knows who the killer is. He’s a respected Florida judge. She is also convinced that the judge has killed at least six other people. He’s a serial killing judge, a man who looks normal on the outside but harbors violent fantasies of retribution against those he thinks have wronged him.
Of course, Jeri doesn’t have a shred of proof, but she has a lot of remarkable coincidences. The victims all have a connection to the judge, and their manner of death is distinctive and identical in each case. Lacy takes in her story with a fair amount of skepticism. Can this woman possibly be telling the truth? And, even if she were, her office does not investigate murders. She tells Jeri to go to the police, but Jeri is terrified of the judge finding out and ending up on “the judge’s list” of those whom he plans to kill.
It turns out that Jeri is right, and the book soon splits into parallel narratives of the judge going about his murderous secret life while Lacy tries to figure out what to do. After trying to turn Jeri away, Lacy finally takes on the case—promising to turn it over to the police if they can get even the slightest bit of real evidence.
The book proceeds to treat you to a well-plotted and well-written cat and mouse game between Lacy, Jeri, and the judge. He’s always a step ahead, however, because he’s also a master hacker. He’s aware of what law enforcement is doing on his case.
The Judge’s List delivers pretty good suspense. Grisham’s knowledge of legal procedure and his attention to detail add to the fun. He has a keen sense of how a second tier state bureaucratic office functions, and it’s interesting to read. His realism enhances the characters as three-dimensional people.
As she pursues the killer judge, Lacy also tries to figure out what’s going to happen with her FBI agent boyfriend, Allie. They’re both approaching age 40 and need to make some big decisions.
My only complaint about this book is its length. It seems that the new rule for major authors is that they have to write a double-length book. This 450+ pager weighs in at probably around 140,000 words, which is twice as long as a debut novel by a new thriller writer. Publishers won’t even look at manuscripts over 100,000 words, but people like Grisham are expected to crank out these monsters.
The result is a sense that some of the story has been padded. Things take a little to long to get through. We are treated to sequences about Jeri’s family life, and other (in my view) extraneous details. If you’re into that sort of thing, and don’t mind a looser narrative style, you’ll be fine with The Judge’s List. Grisham definitely keeps you interested all the way through.