The Racketeer
Malcolm Bannister is a small-time lawyer in a small town. He picks up an mysterious client, an unnamed entity who turns out to be link to a big shot syndicate where he soon plunges into unknowingly. He gets the job done but he gets compensated more than what's agreed. Huge amount goes to his bank account, and more strangely, it can't be returned. The syndicate is putting money in people's accounts without their permission to keep it from the government. Before Mal has time to realize what's happening, the FBI gets in the picture. The syndicate's operation goes wrong, an underage girl gets killed, the FBI takes a sniff. Everyone slightly involved in the RICO activities is sent to prison, including Malcolm Bannister, whose bank record shows he's had transaction with a syndicate.
In prison, he quickly develops a reputation. Serving his 10-year sentence, he soon sends a fellow inmate free by solving his crime. Words get out, and another comes to him for help. And another. He is solving crimes, setting people free that shouldn't have been in the prison in the first place thanks for ineffective assistance of counsel.
In the meantime, a federal judge and his girlfriend are killed, his safe emptied, and an investigation quickly takes place. All turns lead to dead-ends, all means exhausted, the FBI is making a lot of people suspects. In short, the government is clueless. But Malcolm Bannister is not. He knows who killed the judge and why. He also knows that his government is a long way from the target. He lets the FBI knows this, who then enlists his help.
Quinn Rucker is an inmate, and one of those who deserves to be one. Then, he decides to escape prison and does. Mal tells Quinn is the man, sending them chasing after the latter.
The FBI searches Quinn, finds him and sets him to a ten-hour long questioning that involves the best interrogators, hallucinations, FBI threats, and eventually, a confession. The case closed. The government goes from being desperate to ecstatic. They win a major victory.
Or so it seems until Quinn starts accusing the FBI of employing unlawful tactics - stating evidences and witnesses that do no exist - during the interrogation. That he was threatened by the agents, that he was hallucinating, that he was exhausted.
For the deal, Mal gets to opt to get a new name, a new face, a whole new self. Everything to prevent Quinn and his friends to catch and kill him. He gets surgery. Malcolm Bannister now becomes Max Reed Baldwin.
Max starts his young life busy. He wants to travel, and he tells the FBI to go away. He's a free man, he can do whatever he wants.
The FBI gets an authority to pry on Quinn's brother, Dee Ray, whom they bug, knowing the brothers wil go after Mal for his ploy. This turns out to be correct, when Dee Ray gets a call from an anonymous caller telling him that Mal - now Max - has been found, looks very different, is called a different name, and is a happy boy in the Florida beach.
Mal starts to run. He runs so fast even the FBI can not keep up with him. He contacts a woman, Vaness Williams, he once knew when he was in prison.
Together, they made a plan that lead them to invent a fake film production company. Max writes a letter to a man he wants to make a documentary film with, or for. He is Nathan Cooley. Unsurprisingly, he served time in prison with Max (Mal). Nathan has just gotten out of prison. Dealing meth was what got him in. After he got out, he started anew by estranging himself from the rest of the family, who are known drug dealers. He started his own bar. He bought a jeep. He had a brother, whom the DEA killed in the same drug bust that sent him to prison for supposedly trying to escape.
Nathan receives the letter, gives Max a call. They agree to meet. Max doesn't introduce himself as Mal, thus, he doesn't want Nathan to recognize him. Max's plan is to make a documentary film about the abuse of power by the federal government, and its ability to kill people whenever they want to in trying to keep prisons from overpopulation. Having a brother who got killed by the same government, Nathan quickly cooperates.
With the film nearly finished, another plan takes place, one that involves taking Nathan to Florida who ended up dead drunk still up in the air, with a fake passport Max gave him.
He wakes up in a hospital. Max is nowhere to be found. Two policemen approach him, says he's in Jamaica, he's under arrest, and is likely going to be in prison for a very long time. His offense: carrying a fake passport, a gun and some drug. None of those things he's aware of bringing.
Max doesn't seem to expect that one of them would get arrested, and is a bit worried. He carries on, finding ways as he goes. All plans have been set in advance and are so well-prepared to be a failure.
Things back home are also in motion, Vanessa is in Nathan's house searching for something she can't seem to find. Max thinks it's somewhere hidden in the house. Both don't know what it is.
Max and a lawyer visit Nathan in prison, who is now a beaten man, and wants to get out immediately. Max says they need money to do that, bribe people, and also informs him that they're now short of money. By the second visit, Nathan is so desperate he finally tells Max his "secret". He has money, a lot of it, and he wants Max to go back to the US to get it and come back to get him out of prison. He tells Max its location, who calls Vanessa, who's still in Nathan's house (the location), and she finds it. The secret is hundreds of gold bars worth millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, Max emails the FBI, saying he's made a mistake, that Quinn isn't the killer, and that he knows who the real killer is. He makes a new deal with the FBI. Freedom of Quinn in exchange for the identity of the killer. The FBI realizes Max has nothing to gain now that he's free by lying, so they accept the term.
The judge's killer is Nathan Cooley, aka Nathaniel Coley. The judge approached him one day for manual labor for fee, and Nathan suspected whatever it was he helped carry was important. He was always doing things with his brother and he told him about it and they began investigating and following the judge until they learned that it was indeed important, and more. Bars of gold. The judge was obtaining them from attorneys for bribes, and now the brothers were going to take them from him in whatever means. Nathan succeeded in doing so after five years when he got out of prison, his brother long dead. He couldn't do it without executing the judge and his girlfriend who was in the wrong place at the wrong time...
The bars are now in the group's hands.
Vanessa is Quinn's mysterious sister who visited him in prison. Quinn is Mal's buddy in the same place, Dee Ray was to be their financier. Quinn feigned lunacy from the beginning. Max knew the killer all along. He followed the big case that gave the judge his ultimate demise. All actions were made to lead them to freedom the government so intensely deprived them. They all had a laugh for bullying the FBI, Max has no plans of stopping. They got even. And more importantly, they are rich.
'Racketeer' is defined as a person who engages in dishonest and fraudulent business dealings. As always, John Grisham is so full of new information for his readers. This is the most confusing novel of John Grisham's that I've read so far. Right now, I'm still thinking how the story ended that way, what happened, and my brain is only beginning to piece everything together. But, I'm still confused. I get lost sometimes and find myself not understanding the sequence so I'd read back. Also, it's a long, long story. I downloaded an epub format, every page must be a thousand words, and I had to click right arrows, what, 50 times to get to the end. It took me two overnights and a day to finish it. But I think the plot uses way too many people for a single story to fit in. There are many characters who don't really make sense. I still can't understand Nathan Cooley, for example.
In prison, he quickly develops a reputation. Serving his 10-year sentence, he soon sends a fellow inmate free by solving his crime. Words get out, and another comes to him for help. And another. He is solving crimes, setting people free that shouldn't have been in the prison in the first place thanks for ineffective assistance of counsel.
In the meantime, a federal judge and his girlfriend are killed, his safe emptied, and an investigation quickly takes place. All turns lead to dead-ends, all means exhausted, the FBI is making a lot of people suspects. In short, the government is clueless. But Malcolm Bannister is not. He knows who killed the judge and why. He also knows that his government is a long way from the target. He lets the FBI knows this, who then enlists his help.
Quinn Rucker is an inmate, and one of those who deserves to be one. Then, he decides to escape prison and does. Mal tells Quinn is the man, sending them chasing after the latter.
The FBI searches Quinn, finds him and sets him to a ten-hour long questioning that involves the best interrogators, hallucinations, FBI threats, and eventually, a confession. The case closed. The government goes from being desperate to ecstatic. They win a major victory.
Or so it seems until Quinn starts accusing the FBI of employing unlawful tactics - stating evidences and witnesses that do no exist - during the interrogation. That he was threatened by the agents, that he was hallucinating, that he was exhausted.
For the deal, Mal gets to opt to get a new name, a new face, a whole new self. Everything to prevent Quinn and his friends to catch and kill him. He gets surgery. Malcolm Bannister now becomes Max Reed Baldwin.
Max starts his young life busy. He wants to travel, and he tells the FBI to go away. He's a free man, he can do whatever he wants.
The FBI gets an authority to pry on Quinn's brother, Dee Ray, whom they bug, knowing the brothers wil go after Mal for his ploy. This turns out to be correct, when Dee Ray gets a call from an anonymous caller telling him that Mal - now Max - has been found, looks very different, is called a different name, and is a happy boy in the Florida beach.
Mal starts to run. He runs so fast even the FBI can not keep up with him. He contacts a woman, Vaness Williams, he once knew when he was in prison.
Together, they made a plan that lead them to invent a fake film production company. Max writes a letter to a man he wants to make a documentary film with, or for. He is Nathan Cooley. Unsurprisingly, he served time in prison with Max (Mal). Nathan has just gotten out of prison. Dealing meth was what got him in. After he got out, he started anew by estranging himself from the rest of the family, who are known drug dealers. He started his own bar. He bought a jeep. He had a brother, whom the DEA killed in the same drug bust that sent him to prison for supposedly trying to escape.
Nathan receives the letter, gives Max a call. They agree to meet. Max doesn't introduce himself as Mal, thus, he doesn't want Nathan to recognize him. Max's plan is to make a documentary film about the abuse of power by the federal government, and its ability to kill people whenever they want to in trying to keep prisons from overpopulation. Having a brother who got killed by the same government, Nathan quickly cooperates.
With the film nearly finished, another plan takes place, one that involves taking Nathan to Florida who ended up dead drunk still up in the air, with a fake passport Max gave him.
He wakes up in a hospital. Max is nowhere to be found. Two policemen approach him, says he's in Jamaica, he's under arrest, and is likely going to be in prison for a very long time. His offense: carrying a fake passport, a gun and some drug. None of those things he's aware of bringing.
Max doesn't seem to expect that one of them would get arrested, and is a bit worried. He carries on, finding ways as he goes. All plans have been set in advance and are so well-prepared to be a failure.
Things back home are also in motion, Vanessa is in Nathan's house searching for something she can't seem to find. Max thinks it's somewhere hidden in the house. Both don't know what it is.
Max and a lawyer visit Nathan in prison, who is now a beaten man, and wants to get out immediately. Max says they need money to do that, bribe people, and also informs him that they're now short of money. By the second visit, Nathan is so desperate he finally tells Max his "secret". He has money, a lot of it, and he wants Max to go back to the US to get it and come back to get him out of prison. He tells Max its location, who calls Vanessa, who's still in Nathan's house (the location), and she finds it. The secret is hundreds of gold bars worth millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, Max emails the FBI, saying he's made a mistake, that Quinn isn't the killer, and that he knows who the real killer is. He makes a new deal with the FBI. Freedom of Quinn in exchange for the identity of the killer. The FBI realizes Max has nothing to gain now that he's free by lying, so they accept the term.
The judge's killer is Nathan Cooley, aka Nathaniel Coley. The judge approached him one day for manual labor for fee, and Nathan suspected whatever it was he helped carry was important. He was always doing things with his brother and he told him about it and they began investigating and following the judge until they learned that it was indeed important, and more. Bars of gold. The judge was obtaining them from attorneys for bribes, and now the brothers were going to take them from him in whatever means. Nathan succeeded in doing so after five years when he got out of prison, his brother long dead. He couldn't do it without executing the judge and his girlfriend who was in the wrong place at the wrong time...
The bars are now in the group's hands.
Vanessa is Quinn's mysterious sister who visited him in prison. Quinn is Mal's buddy in the same place, Dee Ray was to be their financier. Quinn feigned lunacy from the beginning. Max knew the killer all along. He followed the big case that gave the judge his ultimate demise. All actions were made to lead them to freedom the government so intensely deprived them. They all had a laugh for bullying the FBI, Max has no plans of stopping. They got even. And more importantly, they are rich.
'Racketeer' is defined as a person who engages in dishonest and fraudulent business dealings. As always, John Grisham is so full of new information for his readers. This is the most confusing novel of John Grisham's that I've read so far. Right now, I'm still thinking how the story ended that way, what happened, and my brain is only beginning to piece everything together. But, I'm still confused. I get lost sometimes and find myself not understanding the sequence so I'd read back. Also, it's a long, long story. I downloaded an epub format, every page must be a thousand words, and I had to click right arrows, what, 50 times to get to the end. It took me two overnights and a day to finish it. But I think the plot uses way too many people for a single story to fit in. There are many characters who don't really make sense. I still can't understand Nathan Cooley, for example.
Comments
Post a Comment