Grisham’s ‘Whistler’: Not much noise
Strengths and flaws are comforting, but not compelling
You know the last few pages of a thriller, where the cops wrap up the loose ends and make their arrests? If you’ve ever wished that section lasted 200 pages, the book for you is The
Whistler (Doubleday, 374 pp., out eegE of four) by John Grisham.
Grisham has become an institution. For more than 25 years now he’s been our guide to the byways and backwaters of our legal system, superb in particular at ferreting out its vulnerabilities and dramatizing their abuses in gripping style. He excels at describing injustice and corruption. (It’s fitting that he’s ended up on the board of The Innocence Project, a charity that seeks to exonerate the wrongfully convicted.)
The flaws that accompany these strengths, from stilted dia-
logue to wisp-thin characters to a sense of humor dads have been perfecting around grills for a century, are so familiar they’re nearly comforting.
The Whistler sets up in typical Grisham style: At an obscure government agency, Florida’s Board of Judicial Conduct, an agent gets a tip. The BJC is a team of six, tasked with investigating com- plaints about judges. These complaints are often small — alcoholism, minor bribes. This one, though, might be huge. A disbarred lawyer, skulking around the docks, claims to have a bead on the most corrupt judge in American history.
It turns out he’s right. She’s on the take. We learn this early, and also who’s paying her (it’s a secretive coastal crime organization made up of several cousins), and why they’re doing it (graft at a Native American casino). We learn who their victims are; among others, there’s an innocent man on death row, staring hard at the needle.
These are the ingredients of a good thriller. They’re just presented in mystifying order. Grisham’s last big narrative flashpoint comes about a third of the way into the book, and from there, it’s only a matter of tying bows on the plotline. Without any tension, it’s inoffensive but also uninteresting.
The central character, Lacy, is a complete cipher. The writing is … by John Grisham. (“And now that we’re on the subject, how’s your sex life?” a co-worker asks her.) Everyone who seems to have done the bad stuff did the bad stuff, in exactly the order you would have guessed. The best moments in The
Whistler delineate the exact particulars of the illegal operation at the casino, shedding light on the fascinating set of laws that govern the gambling operations of Florida tribes.
Grisham’s legal knowledge is impressive, and his ability to convey it unparalleled in popular fiction.
But that’s not enough to sustain a novel without suspense. This author has always been strongest when writing about protagonists whose own lives are in a state of doubt and danger, rather than about those conducting straight-up investigations. Thrillers, by classical definition, rather than mysteries. That seems especially true in this mystery, a forgettable moment in a great career.