I liked this book. It set a pretty fast pace but it wasn't difficult reading. Like many of Grisham's previous works the protagonist is a lawyer.

In The Racketeer the hero is a black man. This man, Malcolm Bannister, narrates most of the story. There are occasional switches back to third person. Bannister is a federal convict. Previously he was an up and coming lawyer at a small black owned law firm.

Bannister briefly did some arms length work for a shady lobbyist and was, according to him, wrongfully accused of money laundering. Insisting on his innocence, he refused a deal and was as surprised as anyone when he was convicted and sent to federal prison. His wife has divorced him. Bannister's father visits him infrequently and seems to believe his son must be guilty because otherwise he wouldn't be in prison. He is a source of shame to his previous partners who hired him when white law firms rejected him.

When a right-wing federal judge is murdered, Bannister is confident that he knows who did it and why. And for the reward money, release from prison, wiping of his record and entry into the Witness Protection Program, Bannister will tell the authorities everything that they need to know.

The FBI is desperate to solve the case. The federal prosecutors are confident that they know the law better than any convicted former attorney and see no issue with making a deal. Leaving prison is only the first part of Bannister's plan. He has plans within plans and nothing but a cold contempt for the system that ruined his life. Although Bannister maintains his innocence the book plays with this for a while. You may come to your own conclusions about this before the story gives the definitive answer. Bannister behaves like an innocent man..most of the time.

Grisham obviously knows a lot about the law. That's evident in the casual references to all sorts of laws and precedents (many real, some fictional) in the story. He also doesn't like bullies, the insane proliferation of federal crimes and the awesome ability of federal prosecutors to convert just about any activity they don't like into a crime, given time and motivation. One character muses it's surprising that more federal judges aren't murdered. There are a lot of twists so if you like the idea of the author (and protagonist) showing that he was smart enough to fool you a few times, you may like this story.