Introduction: Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five. Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge鈥檚 untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland. On paper, Malcolm鈥檚 situation isn鈥檛 looking too good these days, but he鈥檚 got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge鈥檚 body was found in his remote lakeside cabin. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied. What was in the safe? The FBI would love to know. And Malcolm Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price鈥攅specially information as explosive as the sequence of events that led to Judge Fawcett鈥檚 death. And the Racketeer wasn鈥檛 born yesterday . . . Nothing is as it seems and everything鈥檚 fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller....