Knowing who the killer is isn't the problem. Proving it without becoming his next victim is.
The Judge’s List by John Grisham is one of those books where you know who the good guys are and you know who the bad guy is. There really isn't much question about that. The trick is figuring out how the bad guy is going to get away with what he's done when the good guys are right there keeping an eye on him.
And this particular bad guy is downright creepy.
Lacy Stoltz works for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, investigating complaints against judges. Then Jeri Crosby comes to her with one heck of a complaint: she believes a sitting judge is a serial killer, and she has spent years gathering evidence to prove it.
I liked both Lacy and Jeri, although I was torn about both of them at first. I wanted Lacy to be a little more patient with Jeri. This woman has been living with this for years, and she's terrified. Give her a minute! At the same time, there were moments when I wanted to tell Jeri, "Just get to the point already!" So apparently I was going to be impatient no matter which woman I sided with.
The judge, however, was an excellent villain. He's intelligent, methodical, and terrifyingly good at what he does. He knows the law. He knows how investigations work. He knows how to leave a crime scene without leaving forensic evidence. Even worse, he has his own sophisticated hacking system, called Maggotz, that allows him to keep tabs on the people around him. With that little tidbit, "creepy" becomes an understatement.
So while Lacy and Jeri are trying to figure out how to catch him, there's always that uncomfortable little thought in the back of your mind:
How much does he already know about what they're doing?
That's where the suspense comes from. This isn't really a whodunit. We know who did it. The question is whether Lacy and Jeri can possibly prove it when they're dealing with someone who knows the system well enough to stay several steps ahead of them.
I really enjoyed this one. The storyline was excellent, the villain was genuinely unsettling, and Grisham kept me interested all the way through. It didn't have me staying up until ridiculous hours muttering "just one more chapter," so the dust bunnies were never in serious danger, but I was always ready to pick it back up.
A solid four stars. Sometimes knowing exactly who the bad guy is makes watching the net slowly close around him even more satisfying.
