The Rainmaker by John Grisham (Epub)

Description

One case. One chance. One man against the world.

Rookie lawyer Rudy Baylor is about to take on the case of a lifetime,

Fighting for justice for a young man whose death could have easily been prevented.

There is just one problem. Rudy has never argued a case before.

And he is up against the most expensive lawyers that money can buy.

Can Rudy win against the odds?

Or will the truth be buried forever?

User’s Reviews

From Publishers Weekly Grisham’s intricate, spellbinding sixth novel differs from his last few?it’s his only book with first-person narration and his first since his debut to be set in a courtroom?but the trademark Grisham touches are in place. Rookie attorney Rudy Baylor is the customary David fighting a legal Goliath (here a multibillion-dollar insurance company), and the suspense builds with impeccable pacing despite workaday prose. When the modestly sized law firm that contracted for his future services unexpectedly merges with a tony Ivy League firm, Rudy finds himself without a job and bankrupt. Filing a $10 million lawsuit takes away some of the sting, as does a lonely elderly woman’s offer of low rent on a small apartment in exchange for rewriting her will. To make a living, Rudy finds himself chasing ambulances for a racketeering shyster, leading to his becoming enthralled with a beautiful young woman hospitalized by her husband’s murderous attack. When Rudy agrees to represent the parents of a dying 22-year-old denied insurance coverage for a bone-marrow transplant, he finds that he is up against the firm that broke contract with him. Melding the courtroom savvy of A Time to Kill with the psychological nuance of The Chamber, imbued with wry humor and rich characters, this bittersweet tale, the author’s quietest and most thoughtful, shows that Grisham’s imagination can hold its own in a courtroom as well as on the violent streets outside. Major ad/promo; large-print edition, ISBN 0-385-47512-8; audio rights to BDD Audio. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review “A taut and terrific page-turner.”—Entertainment Weekly“Great fun to read . . . The complex plotting is Grisham’s major accomplishment.”—Los Angeles Times“The pace is fast, the characters quirky, the result entertaining.”—USA Today “[Grisham is] a mighty narrative talent.”—Chicago Sun-Times –This text refers to the mass_market edition. Amazon.com Review Rudy Baylor, a new law school graduate, once dreamed of the good life as a corporate attorney. Now he faces joblessness and bankruptcy–unless he can win an insurance case against a heavyweight team of lawyers, a case that starts small but mushrooms into a frightening war of nerve and legal skill that could cost Rudy not only his future, but also his life. –This text refers to the mass_market edition. From Library Journal Narrator Frank Muller’s voice is just right for conveying both lawyer Rudy Baylor’s early cynicism and restoration in Grisham’s crowd-pleasing 1995 title. The story pits Rudy against two Goliaths: a downtown Memphis law firm and a scandalously inhumane insurance company. Tension rises as Rudy builds the case of a poor family whose son, in need of a transplant they cannot afford, is dying because their claim, covered in their policy, has been denied by the insurance company. Things become ominous, as in all Grisham stories, but there is a humorous subplot and a romance. We begin to care for Rudy as he sheds a moral bankruptcy developed in pursuit of his law degree and regains his original interest in the law as a way to fight injustice. An excellent production; recommended.?Mark Pumphrey, Polk Cty P.L., Columbus, N.C.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER ONE MY DECISION to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession. I was a young teenager, clumsy, embarrassed by my awkwardness, frustrated with life, horrified of puberty, about to be shipped off to a military school by my father for insubordination. He was an ex-Marine who believed boys should live by the crack of the whip. I’d developed a quick tongue and an aversion to discipline, and his solution was simply to send me away. It was years before I forgave him. He was also an industrial engineer who worked seventy hours a week for a company that made, among many other items, ladders. Because by their very nature ladders are dangerous devices, his company became a frequent target of lawsuits. And because he handled design, my father was the favorite choice to speak for the company in depositions and trials. I can’t say that I blame him for hating lawyers, but I grew to admire them because they made his life so miserable. He’d spend eight hours haggling with them, then hit the martinis as soon as he walked in the door. No hellos. No hugs. No dinner. Just an hour or so of continuous bitching while he slugged down four martinis then passed out in his battered recliner. One trial lasted three weeks, and when it ended with a large verdict against the company my mother called a doctor and they hid him in a hospital for a month. The company later went broke, and of course all blame was directed at the lawyers. Not once did I hear any talk that maybe a trace of mismanagement could in any way have contributed to the bankruptcy. Liquor became his life, and he became depressed. He went years without a steady job, which really ticked me off because I was forced to wait tables and deliver pizza so I could claw my way through college. I think I spoke to him twice during the four years of my undergraduate studies. The day after I learned I had been accepted to law school, I proudly returned home with this great news. Mother told me later he stayed in bed for a week. Two weeks after my triumphant visit, he was changing a lightbulb in the utility room when (I swear this is true) a ladder collapsed and he fell on his head. He lasted a year in a coma in a nursing home before someone mercifully pulled the plug. Several days after the funeral, I suggested the possibility of a lawsuit, but Mother was just not up to it. Also, I’ve always suspected he was partially inebriated when he fell. And he was earning nothing, so under our tort system his life had little economic value. My mother received a grand total of fifty thousand dollars in life insurance, and remarried badly. He’s a simple sort, my stepfather, a retired postal clerk from Toledo, and they spend most of their time square dancing and traveling in a Winnebago. I keep my distance. Mother didn’t offer me a dime of the money, said it was all she had to face the future with, and since I’d proven rather adept at living on nothing, she felt I didn’t need any of it. I had a bright future earning money; she did not, she reasoned. I’m certain Hank, the new husband, was filling her ear full of financial advice. Our paths will cross again one day, mine and Hank’s. I will finish law school in May, a month from now, then I’ll sit for the bar exam in July. I will not graduate with honors, though I’m somewhere in the top half of my class. The only smart thing I’ve done in three years of law school was to schedule the required and difficult courses early, so I could goof off in this, my last semester. My classes this spring are a joke: Sports Law, Art Law, Selected Readings from the Napoleonic Code and, my favorite, Legal Problems of the Elderly. It is this last selection that has me sitting here in a rickety chair behind a flimsy folding table in a hot, damp, metal building filled with an odd assortment of seniors, as they like to be called. A hand-painted sign above the only visible door majestically labels the place as the Cypress Gardens Senior Citizens Building, but other than its name the place has not the slightest hint of flowers or greenery. The walls are drab and bare except for an ancient, fading photograph of Ronald Reagan in one corner between two sad little flagstone, the Stars and Stripes, the other, the state flag of Tennessee. The building is small, somber and cheerless, obviously built at the last minute with a few spare dollars of unexpected federal money. I doodle on a legal pad, afraid to look at the crowd inching forward in their folding chairs. There must be fifty of them out there, an equal mixture of blacks and whites, average age of at least seventy-five, some blind, a dozen or so in wheelchairs, many wearing hearing aids. We were told they meet here each day at noon for a hot meal, a few songs, an occasional visit by a desperate political candidate. After a couple of hours of socializing, they will leave for home and count the hours until they can return here. Our professor said this was the highlight of their day. We made the painful mistake of arriving in time for lunch. They sat the four of us in one corner along with our leader, Professor Smoot, and examined us closely as we picked at neoprene chicken and icy peas. My Jell-O was yellow, and this was noticed by a bearded old goat with the name Bosco scrawled on his Hello-My-Name-Is tag stuck above his dirty shirt pocket. Bosco mumbled something about yellow Jell-O, and I quickly offered it to him, along with my chicken, but Miss Birdie Birdsong corralled him and pushed him roughly back into his seat. Miss Birdsong is about eighty but very spry for her age, and she acts as mother, dictator and bouncer of this organization. She works the crowd like a veteran ward boss, hugging and patting, schmoozing with other little blue-haired ladies, laughing in a shrill voice and all the while keeping a wary eye on Bosco who undoubtedly is the bad boy of the bunch. She lectured him for admiring my Jell-O, but seconds later placed a full bowl of the yellow putty before his glowing eyes. He ate it with his stubby fingers. An hour passed. Lunch proceeded as if these starving souls were feasting on seven courses with no hope of another meal. Their wobbly forks and spoons moved back and forth, up and down, in and out, as if laden with precious metals. Time was of absolutely no consequence. They yelled at each other when words stirred them. They dropped food on the floor until I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I even ate my Jell-O. Bosco, still covetous, watched my every move. Miss Birdie fluttered around the room, chirping about this and that. Professor Smoot, an oafish egghead complete with crooked bow tie, bushy hair and red suspenders, sat with the stuffed satisfaction of a man who’d just finished a fine meal, and lovingly admired the scene before us. He’s a kindly soul, in his early fifties, but with mannerisms much like Bosco and his friends, and for twenty years he’s taught the kindly courses no one else wants to teach and few students want to take. Children’s Rights, Law of the Disabled, Seminar on Domestic Violence, Problems of the Mentally Ill and, of course, Geezer Law, as this one is called outside his presence. He once scheduled a course to be called Rights of the Unborn Fetus, but it attracted a storm of controversy so Professor Smoot took a quick sabbatical. He explained to us on the first day of class that the purpose of the course was to expose us to real people with real legal problems. It’s his opinion that all students enter law school with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after three years of brutal competition we care for nothing but the right job with the right firm where we can make partner in seven years and earn big bucks. He’s right about this. The class is not a required one, and we started with eleven students. After a month of Smoot’s boring lectures and constant exhortations to forsake money and work for free, we’d been whittled down to four. It’s a worthless course, counts for only two hours, requires almost no work, and this is what attracted me to it. But, if there were more than a month left, I seriously doubt I could tough it out. At this point, I hate law school. And I have grave concerns about the practice of law. This is my first confrontation with actual clients, and I’m terrified. Though the prospects sitting out there are aged and infirm, they are staring at me as if I possess great wisdom. I am, after all, almost a lawyer, and I wear a dark suit, and I have this legal pad in front of me on which I’m drawing squares and circles, and my face is fixed in an intelligent frown, so I must be capable of helping them. Seated next to me at our folding table is Booker Kane, a black guy who’s my best friend in law school. He’s as scared as I am. Before us on folded index cards are our written names in black felt–Booker Kane and Rudy Baylor. That’s me. Next to Booker is the podium behind which Miss Birdie is screeching, and on the other side is another table with matching index cards proclaiming the presence of F. Franklin Donaldson the Fourth, a pompous ass who for three years now has been sticking initials and numerals before and after his name. Next to him is a real bitch, N. Elizabeth Erickson, quite a gal, who wears pinstripe suits, silk ties and an enormous chip on her shoulder. Many of us suspect she also wears a jockstrap. Smoot is standing against the wall behind us. Miss Birdie is doing the announcements, hospital reports and obituaries. She’s yelling into a microphone with a sound system that’s working remarkably well. Four large speakers hang in the corners of the room, and her piercing voice booms around and crashes in from all directions. Hearing aids are slapped and taken out. For the moment, no one is asleep. Today there are three obituaries, and when Miss Birdie finally finishes I see a few tears in the audience. God, please don’t let this happen to me. Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death while I’m sleeping.To our left against a wall, the pianist comes to life and smacks sheets of music on the wooden grill in front of her. Miss Birdie fancies herself as some kind of political analyst, and just as she starts railing against a proposed increase in the sales tax, the pianist attacks the keys. “America the Beautiful,” I think. With pure relish, she storms through a clanging rendition of the opening refrain, and the geezers grab their hymnals and wait for the first verse. Miss Birdie does not miss a beat. Now she’s the choir director. She raises her hands, then claps them to get attention, then starts flopping them all over the place with the opening note of verse one. Those who are able slowly get to their feet. The howling fades dramatically with the second verse. The words are not as familiar and most of these poor souls can’t see past their noses, so the hymnals are useless. Bosco’s mouth is suddenly closed but he’s humming loudly at the ceiling. The piano stops abruptly as the sheets fall from the grill and scatter onto the floor. End of song. They stare at the pianist who, bless her heart, is snatching at the air and fumbling around her feet where the music has gathered. “Thank you!” Miss Birdie yells into the microphone as they suddenly fall back into their seats. “Thank you. Music is a wonderful thang. Let’s give thanks to God for beautiful music.” “Amen!” Bosco roars. “Amen,” another relic repeats with a nod from the back row. “Thank you,” Miss Birdie says. She turns and smiles at Booker and me. We both lean forward on our elbows and once again look at the crowd. “Now,” she says dramatically, “for the program today, we are so pleased to have Professor Smoot here again with some of his very bright and handsome students.” She flops her baggy hands at us and smiles with her gray and yellow teeth at Smoot who has quietly made his way to her side. “Aren’t they handsome?” she asks, waving at us. “As you know,” Miss Birdie proceeds into the microphone, “Professor Smoot teaches law at Memphis State, that’s where my youngest son studied, you know, but didn’t graduate, and every year Professor Smoot visits us here with some of his students who’ll listen to your legal problems and give advice that’s always good, and always free, I might add.” She turns and lays another sappy smile upon Smoot. “Professor Smoot, on behalf of our group, we say welcome back to Cypress Gardens. We thank you for your concern about the problems of senior citizens. Thank you. We love you.” –This text refers to the mass_market edition.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ A legal thriller; no violence or sex, but a complex and intriguing story that makes me think about the law, and the complexities of life. Not a nail-biter but a compelling plot that kept me interested page after page. The good guys win, but don’t make a killing; the bad guys lose, but are not destroyed; and it ends happily for those who deserve it. I’ve read most of Grisham’s books and they have this same balance between good and bad, and between luck and misfortune; they all seem to have happy endings. They each have a different point of view but they all seem to be true-life stories from the world of lawyers. Grisham’s writing style is superb; amazingly fast-paced for dealing with legal arcana, and with just enough irony and humor to be compelling.

⭐ This Grisham’s 7th’ book that I’ve read. And like all former ones, it’s a very enjoyable read. His ability to take the most boring materials of the legal profession and turn them into a a capturing tale, is incredible. Being a lawyer, i can judge his referrence to the legal work in a more professional way than the layman reader. He deserves all credits for involving realistic legal practice to create his plot, rather than taking the easiesr route of using far from real elements to structure the story. It is really admirable how he can simplify complex legal proceedings and business maters and present them to the layman reader in such a clear and captivating way. And beyond all of this, he portraits his main characters in such a human and warmly manner, with all their strengths and weaknesses, that you can’t avoid feeling emphaty and love to them. This book has its fun points though it is not as hilarious as “the Litigators”. There is not a dull moment in these 500 pages’ book. It grips you until the very last page, with numberless twists in between . I can’t wait for starting the next Grisham’s book.

⭐ This was my third or fourth time reading this novel, which, as all John Grisham’s novels are, a true learning experience. There may be a film made from this, but save your money – you’ll absolutely get much more out of this book than any film would manage. It is riveting, a page-turner, full of suspense and full of the best kind of revenge: on a rotten year insurance company that cares nothing of people but tried to screw them for money.You will love this novel!

⭐ I recommend this book for kids 14 plus, but if you have an 11 year old plus kid who is a very good reader then this is perfect. If you love law themed books, and/or suspense novels, then this book is perfect for you. “The Rainmaker” is a complete page turner. I for one could NOT stop reading this book. Though the 600 pages in this book may seem intimidating, they fly by. If you like the categories listed up above—sentence #2—, then I would definitely recommend that you get this book.

⭐ This will go as one of my favorites among Grisham’s books. It has all the typical scenarios for a legal thriller. A lawyer fresh from school and a successful bar exam representing a lowly family in an insurance claim case, pitted against a big shot from a prestigious and lofty law firm representing one of the biggest insurance companies in America. It’s David versus Goliath!I love legal thrillers, and however typical they are, just give me a good story, and I’ll be content and would probably have nothing but praises in the end. This is one such good story. The groundwork was properly set at the beginning, there were the ups and downs of a startup lawyer; the high energy of the courtroom scenes; that element of romance; the humor spread here and there; and most importantly, a firm conclusion.More than this, I love the realistic characters and scenarios, most especially the emotional highs that emanated from winning a record verdict, only to be sent crashing back on the ground mere days afterwards.I’ve reviewed and hated a couple of Grisham’s books in the past, but this one, I love!

⭐ Hi, my name is SOL, and I want to say something for Mr. Grisham. Having read Gray Mountain before I read The Rainmaker, I realized many issues that Rudy Baylor had with his legal career appeared again as the same ones Samantha was struggling with in Gray Mountain. Therefore the novel resulted a little predictable. However I persisted, found a very full-fleshed out and very endearing charancers along the road, and about the middle of the novel was rewarded with the John Grishman’s most full of surprises stories I had ever read! The court room drama has total verosimilitude, even having a just-licensed lawyer nine months out of law school confront the most seasoned dream team in Tennessee representing the scum-est type of evil corporations. Only want to say expected justice is achieved. Instant wealth for the underdog, however, proves almost impossible and would be hard to believe. Grisham, in one of his finest hours of twists and dissembling, gives us a totally unexpected and yet, totally logical finale. Good for Rudy and some other very special characters… I leave it at that, don’t want to give a spoiler!

⭐ Grisham writes great stories, and I’ve read almost all of them. However, he sure has a way of putting crap endings to his works. Interesting, engrossing, everything is going great — then thud. He ruins the story by having it fall apart at the end (again — count on it). Gets kind of predictable — and tiring.

⭐ To begine with, don’t go by the movie with Matt Daymon when judging this book. It’s a real page turner. The story is compelling, the characters are great and Mr. Grisham really knows how to write. Good writing makes for good reading and this book really proves that point. as a result of reading this book, I have started reading his other works. I’ll keep you posted on how that works out. But for now, it’s “A Time to Kill”!

⭐ Ok….I love the story…..but in the book I didn’t like Rudy as much as I did watching Matt Damon’s performance as him in film.Matt Damon made him sweeter, more sincere and likeable.But in the book I found the character just rubbed me the wrong way

⭐ This is my favorite Grisham novel. Soooo much better than the movie because you get to spend time in Rudy’s head which is a fun place to be. It makes me laugh and cry and hate insurance companies every time i read it! I’ve had the hard copy for years, have read it multiple times and it never gets old. I bought the Kindle version so I can read it again and again.Update: Just finished reading it again. It’s even better than I remember it. Barely out of college lawyer takes on Big Bad insurance company on behalf of the mother of a young man dying of leukemia. It will boil your blood and warm your heart.

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