A mysterious source contacts the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct (BJC) promising information that will reveal the identity and crimes of the most corrupt judge in the history of the United States. Investigator Lacy Stoltz is assigned to the case and takes her sometimes-partner Hugo Hatch with her to St Augustine to meet the source in person.
The source is revealed to be a disgraced lawyer from Pensacola named Ramsey Mix, now calling himself Greg Myers, who lives on a boat named The Conspirator.
In this and subsequent meetings Mix alias Meyers reveals that the judge in question is Claudia McDover of Florida’s 24th Circuit, who resides in the fictional Brunswick County, in the panhandle of Florida between Tallahassee and Pensacola.
Bureaucrat P.W Ingty, currently reading The Whistler by John Grisham, says, “I love reading thrillers, and John Grisham is one of my favourites. I’ve read many of his novels”.
“Investigating and exposing the wrongdoings of the corrupt judge is a personal challenge for Lacy Stoltz. The Whistler is a commentary on American society.”
Over the course of almost two decades of corruption, Judge McDover has aided the Coast Mafia in their scheme to build the Treasure Key casino in partnership with the Tappacola Indian Nation.
Aside from skimming money from the casino, the Coast Mafia has also been responsible for many lucrative real estate developments in the vicinity of the casino with any legal problems or challenges smoothed over by Judge McDover, who has been well paid in cash and condominiums.
In addition, the Coast Mafia stages the murder of Son Razko, a prominent anti-casino member of the Tappacola Nation, and with the help of Judge McDover makes sure that his right-hand man Junior Mace is falsely convicted of the crime. Meyers has been given this information by an intermediary representing an unknown “mole” close to Judge McDover.
Stoltz and Hatch begin to investigate the allegations before bringing any formal charges against Judge McDover.
The leader of the Coast Mafia, Vonn Dubose, gets wind of the investigation and decides to retaliate. Stoltz and Hatch are lured to a rural part of the Tappacola Reservation by a member of the Tappacola Nation claiming to be an employee of the casino with important information. Driving away from the uneventful meeting, Hatch and Stoltz are deliberately struck head-on by a truck. Hugo Hatch is killed and Lacy Stoltz is badly injured.
A masterpiece of criminal enterprise exposed in a methodical page-turner John Grisham’s The Whistler is tightly written and well crafted.
The controversial aspect of “Whistler” is the unique nature of casino gambling as practiced on Indian reservations. Grisham portrays the tribe as being split initially on whether to allow gaming; some wanting the cash it would provide to bring them out of poverty; others worried that it would morally destroy the community. Both prove true.
Grisham weaves his storyline through both the emotional and psychological aspects of this dilemma. He deftly describes the laws that govern tribes and casinos and how they as sovereign nations under treaty are — and aren’t — subject to judicial review or criminal restraint.
“An informative and thrilling read! I would like to suggest this to everyone,” says Ingty.
Reading suggestions for the week:
1) The Infatuations by Javier Marias
2) Men Without Women by
Haruki Murakami