The legal system in India is such a mess, that we believe things are better everywhere else—particularly in the US, where there may be miscarriage of justice as often as anywhere else, but not our “takeeh pe tareekh milti hai par insaaf nahin milta” scenario, to quote the immortal lines spoken by Sunny Deol in the film Damini.


John Grisham’s bestselling legal thrillers keep poking holes into his country’s legal system. He is one of the few writers books also expose social ills in the US—that he has been able to nail so many over 30 books, should be a cause of concern to American society.

There are two interesting things that leap out of the pages of his latest, The Whistler; one that the US has an organisation like the Board on Judicial Conduct, which keeps an eye on corrupt (or misbehaving) judges; two that he has been creating more female protagonists, and in this book, a female antagonist too.

The Whistler (short for whistle blower), starts with a calm scene, in which two BJC officers—Lacy Stoltz and Hugo Hatch—are on the way to meet a complainant. Their conversation is about their choice of music, her blissful singledom and his sleepless nights with four kids and an exhausted wife. After this the action blows up and keeps going till the end. The two have been approached by a mysterious caller, who wants them to investigate “the most corrupt judge in the history of American jurisprudence.” His motives are not entirely altruistic—he and his invisible informers hope to make a financial killing from the share of the loot confiscated from the judge.

The seat of the corruption is a Native American-operated casino in the Florida Panhandle, and a crooked gangster-cum-real estate shark, who skims off profits from the casino and the development that takes place around it. On his payroll is Judge Claudia McDover, who sees to it that all judgments in her court favour Dubose and his ‘Coast Mafia.’

Dubose eliminated anybody who opposed the casino, and made sure the Tappacola tribe that owns the land made enough money to stay silent about his other legal violations. The Native American cops are corrupt, the FBI too busy with chasing terrorists, don’t care much about a money making and laundering in a casino—even though the amount runs into billions.

The BJC is made up of lawyers, not armed cops, and soon the Dubose gang strikes viciously. The attack makes Lacy all the more determined to root out this large scale corruption and get the FBI to nab the gangsters as well as the judge. Lacy’s source is the somewhat sleazy, ex-lawyer Greg Myers, but his “mole” is not revealed till the end.

Even though the book is not a whodunit, but more about how the judge and her cohorts are brought down-- which is the inevitable conclusion—The Whistler is a gripping thriller. Maybe not in the league of his own Gray Mountain (2014), but close enough. Even though the book lays bare judicial corruption, Grisham does seem to have enough faith in the system to believe that the guilty, no matter how wealthy or powerful, will eventually be punished, and swiftly at that. The FBI is seemingly incorruptible, and once they get on a case they do everything to bring the culprits to justice. That may sound too idealistic but is also reassuring.