The Rainmaker

Author: John Grisham
List Price: $27.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0385424736
Publisher: Doubleday (01 April, 1995)
Sales Rank: 44,372
Average Customer Rating: 4.28 out of 5

Customer Reviews

Rating: 4 out of 5
A book with gripping court scenes and a dash of idealism.
Rudy Baylor is a rookie lawyer who is almost broke. The first case he ever bags is a doozy. It is a bad faith case against a big insurance company. The insurance company could have saved a life if they had not denied a valid claim. Rudy Baylor's story is told in first person, using the simple present tense all through the book. Maintaining the interest of the reader throughout the substantially lengthy story using this kind of comparatively uncommon style of writing is indeed a feat and only a very confident writer would dare attempt it. John Grisham dares - and succeeds. The book starts by giving some background about Rudy Baylor. From there on, the plot threads off in diverse and interesting directions. The longest thread is of course the one about the insurance case. It occupies more than half the book. The next most prominent thread concerns the love affair of Rudy with Kelly, who is a young girl married to an abusing husband. The other plot threads involve Rudy's financial troubles, his relationships with various people: his business partner named Deck, an old lady nicknamed Birdy, two underworld characters called Bruiser and the Prince, and other assorted characters. The book has a lot going for it. It is well-paced. There is no lapse of interest at any time. The courtroom scenes are relentlessly gripping. The legal machinery is depicted with authority, and why not? Mr Grisham was a lawyer himself. The novel has no sleazy sex and it has a dash of idealism; two features that are becoming very rare in the best-selling fiction of today. Well done, Mr Grisham. The only gripes, and minor ones, that I have about the novel are two. First, in the initial part of the book, the writing is not tight. It is possible for the reader to skip chunks of text on almost every page and still be able to follow the plot threads. But the writing becomes almost air tight once the courtroom scenes start. My second gripe is about the ending. I don't know why Mr Grisham tried for multiple climaxes. They lessen the impact of the ending. In summary, The Rainmaker is one of the best books to reach the best-seller lists in the recent past.

Rating: 5 out of 5
The Rainmaker
I found this novel by John Grisham very entertaining. I had a hard time putting it down until I was done reading it. It kept me guessing about what was going to happen next and I would often guess wrong Also having never read a book about lawyers before I learned a lot of new things that I would have never known out otherwise. If you like stories about underdogs you will truely love this book. Rudy is a true underdog in this story. He is a just starting out lawyer whose first case is fighting a huge insurance company for 10 million dollars. Not your typical first day on the job. This book moves at a fast pace and my only complaint is that sometimes its hard to keep up. But overall go get this book and it will not dissapoint.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Definitely up there with The Firm and The Pelican Brief
The Rainmaker by John Grisham is a very exciting novel. I read it in the span of two days because I could not put it down. The story goes around a young lawyer named Rudy; a young lawyer who just passed his bar exam, and stressed out with the bill collectors. So now, he takes a case against a huge medical coverage company because they did not live up to the promise of one of their clients; he eventually died from lung cancer, and they didnt come through with the money to pay for the doctor bills. So now, they hire a huge law coporation to take the case. Now Rudy is over his head, but he wants to win this case because this could make him or break him in his law career. While the case moves forward, he meets what John Grisham calls 'a ambulance chase' and they start taking cases from other people, and Rudy still working on the medical case. Then Rudy meets a woman who is being abused by her boyfriend, so Rudy falls for and protects her from him. Now as the medical case moves along, eventually Rudy wins the case of $50 million dollars in grivence pay and medical bills. Rudy is happy winning his first case. Now he then finds out that the medical insurance went bankrupt and the family and Rudy would not see a penny coming their way. So now, with a old Volvo (it has I believe 130,000 miles on it, correct me if I am wrong), he then leaves the small firm he had with his buddy of his, and his new girlfriend and get out of town.

The Rainmaker I thought was a good book, I have not read all of Grisham's novels, but the few i did read (The Rainmaker is one of them), I felt like the man can write a good tale. I cant really call myself a huge Grisham fan, but I like his writing. Anyway, good book and definitely worth reading.



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