Book Review: "Rogue Lawyer"

CEBU, Philippines – Thirty novels into his nearly three-decade career, John Grisham still makes it look easy. Last fall, he brought out "Gray Mountain," a superb thriller about the environmental and human wreckage wrought by big coal companies in Appalachia. This fall, Grisham has switched gears once again and is debuting what looks to be a series featuring a so-called street lawyer named Sebastian Rudd.

Or maybe a better term for Rudd would be "mobile lawyer." Ever since his brick-and-mortar office was firebombed, he has been operating his practice out of a bulletproof van. It's tough to say who was responsible for the firebombing because Rudd is an equal-opportunity offender. He has rubbed so many different people the wrong way - gang members, the police, insurance companies, other lawyers, his ex-wife - that he has resigned himself to packing a pistol, sticking close to his bodyguard and changing motel rooms every few nights when he is arguing his (always controversial) cases.

For relaxation, Rudd swigs bourbon and patronizes cage fights, those brutal, no-holds-barred martial arts "entertainments" that critics have likened to human cockfights. "Mr. Smooth" Sebastian is not. But in hallowed Grisham tradition - where the guys in the custom-tailored suits are always trumped by the scrappy underdogs - he is the defense attorney you want sitting beside you in the courtroom when something unpleasant hits the fan.

"Rogue Lawyer" is so cleverly plotted, it could be used as a how-to manual in fiction-writing courses. Its opening chapters are self-contained, giving the impression that this will be a collection of short legal suspense stories, rather than a novel.

The first chapter, for instance, gives readers the heads-up that no case is too repugnant or hopeless for Rudd to take on. His client is a "brain damaged 18-year-old dropout" named Gardy who is accused of the sadistic double murder of two girls in a small town called Milo. (Grisham doesn't identify Rudd's locale, but best guess is that he is operating in the Southwest.) Tattooed, pierced and perpetually smirking, Gardy does not make a good impression in the courtroom. Rudd is the only lawyer for miles around willing to defend him, but not out of some misplaced chivalric legal impulse. Instead, Rudd relishes the challenge of a fixed fight, of having to "claw and raise hell in a courtroom where no one is listening."

(www.washingtonpost.com)