The Rainmaker

Misty Marie Harms

Rating: really liked it
Rudy Baylor is on the cusp of graduating from law school. In his final semester, he is required to give free legal advice to a group of senior citizens. Dot and Buddy Black are his first clients. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. Rudy quickly realizes the Black's have been mistreated. As he digs deeper, he is shocked to discover that the company as not only screwed the Blacks, but possibly is committing the largest insurance fraud ever seen. Rudy, broke and still trying to pass the bar, is going to have to find the strength and courage to take on powerful attorneys and company in America. I loved this book. It is the little man taking on the big man for his fellow humans. There is good humor throughout the book, I really enjoyed. Excellent book.

🐱🐱🐱🐱

Rob

Rating: really liked it

A stand alone legal thriller published 1995

I really enjoyed this legal thriller.
All the things that you have come to expect from John Grisham are here.
A young lawyer, Rudy Baylor, is fresh out of law school and struggling to make ends meet. He has one job prospect, not the dream job he was hoping for but something to get his foot on the ladder. A the last minute the rug is pulled from under him when he is told that he has just lost the job that he hadn’t even started yet.
Down but not out Rudy has one ace up his sleeve. Whilst during a meet and greet meeting with some senior citizens’ he is told by an elderly lady that she has a problem with an insurance company. It seems that her son is dying of leukaemia and the insurance company is refusing to pay for a life saving bone marrow transplant.
With no where to go and with nothing to lose Rudy throws himself into this David and Goliath battle.

The story is absorbing. The characters are memorable and the courtroom scenes will have you rooting for the little guys.

A thoroughly entertaining 4 star read.

Max Ostrovsky

Rating: really liked it
A very sloppy beginning and an even worse sloppy ending.
The beginning I found meandering. There were just too many plot lines that contained no suspense or anything that grabbed me. I couldn't even feel anything for the main character until close to the middle of the book.
The middle of the book, however, was fantastic. It was engaging and fast paced. I found myself not wanting to put the book down. The centerpiece of the book, the main trial, was handled absolutely fantastically. There were some detours to remind the reader of other weaker plot lines, but aside from that, I love it! Everything culminating to the nail biting climax was exciting, well written, well paced, and filled with characters with real emotional attachment.
Then it all completely fell apart at the end.
The reader got a brilliant conclusion to the primary story line, but then the secondary story lines needed their own half-hearted, and pointless conclusions.
The ultimate ending, without any spoilers, was a huge disappointment and seemed to negate just about everything great the book had going for it.
If I were to recommend this book, I would tell people to stop reading at the verdict because the absolutely pointless love interest plot picks up again and destroys everything good about the book.

Jessica

Rating: really liked it
Why did I like this book so much? Because it showed the "other" side of lawyering - the side that isn't romanticized in Grisham's other novels. For once, there were no mobsters, no politicians with hidden agendas, no paranoid millionaires with money to burn, no fresh-out-of-college rookies who land in hot water because they accidentally stumbled upon a secret that their storied firms had been keeping for years.

Rudy struggles from the outset. He's handed one opportunity after another, only to see it vanish in a twinkling. He's forced to find work at the bottom of the lawerly barrel, haunting hospitals in the hopes of finding cases to prosecute.

That actually leads to a case that Rudy feels passionately about, and along with the storyline revolving around Kelly, makes up the majority of the book.

I liked Rudy's idealism, his fear when having to go to court for the first time, his passion (and fear) for Kelly, and his doubts about his chosen line of work. It was a refreshing change from Grisham's other novels, and a great view of how the not-so-fortunate lawyer grads end up.

Paul

Rating: really liked it
Second time I've read this one. It really is a fun, quick and easy lawyer thriller/legal drama.

Asghar Abbas

Rating: really liked it

My favorite Grisham novel. This is the best one in my opinion. The only one of his books I kept. Rest, I gave them away. Because I have outgrown him. OK, I lied. I kept his Brethren novel too. But you get my point.

This was him getting as close to being a poet as he could be.

*Saying it in South Park the movie fashion* Matt Damon got nothing on this book.

Ammar

Rating: really liked it
David vs. Goliath
A small case that snowballs
Insurance
A young man
Cancer

A rookie lawyer
His first case
The zeal

He is doing his best
For his client
And his a lawyer that needs to survive

Will he make it rain on his clients ??

Mike (the Paladin)

Rating: really liked it
[This is one of those books that left me sort of worn out with the struggles of life. It's not an escapist book as if you're having your own struggles going through the ones here will not exactly give relief. The people here including our protagonist get regularly

Joy D

Rating: really liked it
Law student Rudy Baylor is graduating from law school and is ready to start working for a firm. As part of finishing his coursework, he visits a retirement center where students provide law assistance to seniors. He researches a case that becomes important in his working life. When the firm’s employment offer falls through, he finds himself in a situation with little money, no job, and the need to pass the bar exam. This is another of Grisham’s legal-related books, though more of a courtroom drama than a thriller. The villain is an insurance company and the victim a poor family whose son is dying of leukemia. The storyline is engaging. It is filled with colorful characters. It is told in the first-person present tense by Rudy, so the reader is privy to his thoughts and motivations as he searches for a job and pursues his cases. He has a quick wit and sarcastic sense of humor. It explores legal ethics from the perspective of a new lawyer who wants to “do the right thing” while dealing with unscrupulous tactics of others. The story is entertaining and a fast read despite its length. The downsides include a bit of ageism and sexism, and a subplot related to an abused spouse does not work as well as the court case. Recommended to those that enjoy a story that engages the brain and provides an opportunity to root for the underdog.

Natalie Vellacott

Rating: really liked it
One of my favourite Grisham books. Great drama in the courtroom as Rudy Baylor, novice lawyer sues established, wealthy insurance company Great Benefit. Their crime? Repeatedly denying the claim of a terminally ill young man apparently just because they could...or so they thought.

This book really brings out some important lessons; that in the end, big dreams of wealth, success and power usually end up as just that--dreams! Those that do make it often find that the end result is not what they were seeking so they end up striving for more, and more, and more.....and so it goes on. I think it was Jim Carey who said that he wished everyone could be rich and famous so that then they would realise it wasn't the answer....I love the end of this novel as Baylor realises what's really important to him.

There is some swearing in this book and some violence which in places is quite graphic. There is also a domestic violence storyline and some mild sexual innuendo.

Check out my John Grisham Shelf!

Karen

Rating: really liked it
One of Grisham's books that I forgot I had read a long time back. Very good!!

Mahlon

Rating: really liked it
Leave it to John Grisham to turn a story that pivots on the technical language of an insurance policy into a riveting court room drama! One of his best.

I would've liked A more fleshed resolution to Miss Bertie's problems however.

I haven't read a Grisham book since The Runaway Jury in 1997. This book made me want to go back and read his other works to see what I might have missed.

Susan - on semi hiatus

Rating: really liked it
I hadn't remembered this until I saw a recent review. I'm adding so I don't re-read.

This is a great story about the flip side of the attorney business. An inexperienced lawyer wanting to do right by his clients against a stone wall of an insurance company not performing their contract.

A David and Goliath tale with a satisfying conclusion, I enjoyed reading this.

Cody | CodysBookshelf

Rating: really liked it
How does John Grisham do it? Seriously. He keeps me turning pages long into the night, and with baited breath — something no author accomplishes as well as he. He makes it look easy, creating tantalizing and memorable stories; not to mention the colorful and sympathetic characters that populate those stories.

The Rainmaker is an early Grisham hit, and it follows he formula this author well known for: pitting an underdog (in this case, a fresh-out-of-school trial lawyer) against a formidable enemy (here it is a scheming Insurance company). Throw in an interesting subplot about a will reconfiguration to the tune of twenty million dollars, and a domestic abuse case, and you’ve got riveting reading.

This novel is unique in Grisham’s body of work: it is the only one to be narrative in first-person simple present tense. This choice on the author’s part causes the narrative to have a breakneck feel, a sense of dizzying danger about to happen at every corner. And often, it does. This 1995 bestseller is filled with more twists than any novel I have read in recent months; at times I had to physically will myself to shut my mouth, for it was hanging open. Prepare to finish this one in a matter of days, for it is effortless, thrilling reading served up in classic John Grisham style.

Harv Griffin

Rating: really liked it
This is one of my 2 favorite Grisham novels—don’t bother with the movie, it’s a campy mess of bad acting and awful direction IMHO (actually, the movie is so bad that it is occasionally amusing).



I love courtroom drama. RAINMAKER pits the law student who hasn’t even passed the bar yet and his “paralawyer” against the Big Bad Insurance Company that routinely denies EVERY claim made it against—initially.

Grisham is at the top of his game here; most of his novels are great first-reads (then give it a toss), but this one has pulled me back in for many re-reads. The out-of-court action keeps veering off into sidebars that ultimately tie-in to this David versus Goliath tale. In court David nukes the giant, doesn’t just bang him in the forehead, which is perhaps a weakness in this novel; but the Baddies manage to slither out of judgment by declaring bankruptcy.

The hero gets the girl, murders her abusive husband and gets away with it, kills a naughty insurance company, and retires from the law after a 1-0 lifetime score and a $500,000,000.00 victory. What’s not to like? @hg47