The Rainmaker

What's inside (8 sections)

1. Broke in Memphis and out of options
2. Seniors, wills, and Miss Birdie
3. Kelly and the apartment across the lot
4. Suing Great Benefit
5. Trial against Leo Drummond
6. Verdict on paper and what it costs
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up The Rainmaker because I had read The Firm and The Client years ago and wanted to see what Grisham does when he puts a total rookie in the courtroom. This one came out in 1995 from Doubleday, 448 pages in the hardcover, and it was his sixth novel. Friends had told me it was the one where he sounds angriest about insurance companies. That turned out to be true, but what kept me reading was Rudy Baylor himself, broke, jobless, studying for the bar in a damp Memphis apartment and trying to act like he knows what he is doing.

Rudy narrates the whole book in first person, which Grisham had not done before. The voice is plain and a little wry. He is twenty five or so, in his last semester at Memphis State law school, with student loans, no family money, and a girlfriend who is already pulling away. He thought he had a job lined up with a small firm. Then that firm gets swallowed by a big Memphis firm that does not want him. One meeting and he is back on the street.

What I liked from the start is how small Rudy begins. He is not a star. He fails to impress in interviews. He drinks cheap beer with classmates and worries about rent. My complaint, which shows up later too, is that Grisham sometimes explains law school and bar rules like a pamphlet. But the early chapters move because every small humiliation feels real. A parking ticket he cannot pay. A suit that does not fit right for interviews. A landlady waiting.

Broke in Memphis and out of options

Rudy needs work fast. Through the school placement mess he meets J. Lyman Stone, called Bruiser, a personal injury lawyer with TV ads, a big house, and a reputation for cutting corners. Bruiser hires Rudy as an associate with promises of salary and bonuses that sound too neat. The office smells of new carpet and old files. There is a secretary who knows more than the lawyers. There is Deck Shifflet, who is not a lawyer at all.

Deck is one of my favorite Grisham side characters. He went to law school, never passed the bar after several tries, and now works as a paralegal investigator who can find anyone and serve papers anywhere. He knows which clerks will stamp late, which doctors will testify, which tow drivers see accidents first. He talks fast, dresses badly, and has no shame about chasing cases. Rudy looks down on him at first, then learns Deck is the only person in the building who tells the truth about money.

Law school ends with Rudy still needing to pass the bar. He studies in the library, takes practice tests, panics quietly. His girlfriend Sara leaves him for an old boyfriend with a steadier future. It stings, but Grisham does not linger on it. Sara was never going to stay for ramen and bar review.

Then the FBI raids Bruiser office. Agents come with boxes, copy machines, client lists. Bruiser has been bribing, skimming, paying runners for accident cases, maybe worse. He disappears to the Caribbean or somewhere he cannot be found. His files are seized. His checks bounce. Rudy paycheck stops. In one week Rudy goes from employed to unemployable, with a bar exam in days and a landlord who has heard every excuse.

He passes the bar. Barely, anxiously, but he passes. That small win matters because without it he is nothing in court. With it, he and Deck decide to hang out their own shingle. They rent a tiny office above a former tavern, buy used furniture, print cheap cards. Deck brings a phone and a list of contacts. Rudy brings a law license still warm from the envelope.

Rudy has no clients, no money, and a license that feels more like a permission slip to fail in public.

Seniors, wills, and Miss Birdie

To graduate Rudy had to do clinic hours giving free legal help to seniors. That is where he meets two clients who shape the book.

First is Miss Birdie, real name Birdie Birdsong, in her late seventies, sharp, lonely, rich on paper from family land and stocks, living in a big sagging house. Her family circles, waiting for her to die. She wants a new will. She wants to cut out most of them and leave money to a TV preacher she loves and, after Rudy treats her kindly, to Rudy himself in part. Rudy likes her. He visits, drinks tea, listens to stories about Memphis when she was young. He drafts and redrafts. He worries about capacity challenges later, about looking like he pressured an old woman. Grisham handles this well. The scenes are slow, funny, a little sad. They show Rudy can be patient when no money is on the line.

Miss Birdie will matters because it gives Rudy a reason to learn probate basics and because it pays nothing now but might pay later. It also shows his ethics. He could push her to sign something that helps him. He does not. He tells her to think, to talk to her doctor, to be clear on record. For a book full of crooked lawyers, that steadiness stood out to me.

The second clinic meeting is Dot and Buddy Black. They are in their fifties, working class, tired. Their son Donny Ray is in his early twenties and dying of acute leukemia. A year earlier his doctor said a bone marrow transplant could save him. The family had a Great Benefit life and medical policy that should have covered it. Great Benefit denied the claim. Then denied again. Then stalled with forms and reviews while Donny Ray grew weaker.

Dot brings a shoebox of letters. Denial letters, appeal letters, doctor letters, copies of the policy with sections highlighted. Buddy sits quiet. Dot talks fast, angry and embarrassed at once. Rudy reads and feels sick. The policy seems to cover the treatment. The denials use vague language about preexisting conditions and experimental care. The sums involved are not huge for an insurer, a little over a hundred thousand for the transplant at that time, but fatal for the Blacks.

Rudy takes the case. He has no idea how big it will get. He files in state court asking for the policy amount plus much more for bad faith. Deck helps investigate. They learn Great Benefit denies a large share of claims as a business method. Low level clerks get bonuses for saying no. Supervisors sign off without reading files. It is not one mistake. It is a system.

Donny Ray is the heart of these pages. He is thin, pale, in bed at home because hospitals cost money they do not have. He watches TV, jokes weakly, asks Rudy if he will win. Rudy visits, promises effort, leaves feeling guilty for promising anything. I found these visits harder to read than the courtroom scenes. Grisham does not oversell them. No speeches. Just a young man fading while mail brings more forms.

Kelly and the apartment across the lot

Rudy lives in a shabby apartment complex with thin walls. Across the way he notices Kelly Riker, early twenties, married to Cliff Riker, a violent drunk who works odd jobs and hits her. Rudy hears fights through the walls. He sees bruises covered with makeup. He does what a decent neighbor does at first, nods, helps carry groceries, says little.

Then one night it gets bad. Cliff beats Kelly badly enough to put her in the hospital. Rudy visits, calls a shelter contact, talks about protective orders. Kelly is scared to leave. She has no money, no family nearby, a husband who tracks her. Her story runs parallel to the Blacks in a way Grisham clearly intends. Both are about people with no power facing systems that should help and do not. Police come after, not before. Judges sign papers that angry men ignore.

Rudy falls for Kelly. He knows it is messy. She is married, hurt, not ready. He is her would be lawyer and neighbor, not a savior. To his credit, he mostly listens. He helps her find a place, lends small cash, drives her when Cliff watches the bus stop. Some readers will find this subplot too neat, the kind lawyer rescuing the battered wife. I had that thought too. What saved it for me is that Kelly pushes back. She tells Rudy when he is too much. She makes her own choices about when to go and when to go back, which frustrated me but felt honest.

Cliff keeps drinking and threatening. He follows Rudy. He slashes a tire. He shows up at the office. The threat is blunt, not clever. That bluntness works after chapters of paper denials and legal letters. A man at your door is a different kind of fear than a corporation that never answers the phone.

Suing Great Benefit

Filing against Great Benefit looks simple on paper and brutal in practice. The company hires Leo F. Drummond from Trent and Brent, the top defense firm in Memphis. Drummond is in his fifties, polished, trial tested, with three or four young associates carrying boxes behind him. He has tried dozens of these cases. He knows every judge clerk by name.

Rudy has Deck, a borrowed copier, and a sublet office with a neon sign buzzing outside.

Discovery is where Rudy learns how law really moves. Drummond buries him in motions, requests, objections. Rudy answers at night, typing himself, missing meals. He takes depositions where company witnesses say they do not recall, do not know, were not there. Deck digs up former employees who will talk about quotas and bonus memos. One memo chain shows claims staff were told to deny, delay, defend. Every denial saved money. Every delay made sick people give up.

The judge at first is Harvey Hale, old, pro business, impatient with young lawyers. He grants Drummond most early rulings, limits Rudy questions, warns Rudy about contempt when Rudy pushes. I groaned at some of these hearings because they felt stacked. That is the point, but it also slows the book. Pages of scheduling fights and paper arguments. Grisham clearly knows this world and wants you to feel the grind. I felt it. Some nights I skimmed scheduling talk to get back to Donny Ray or Kelly.

Then Hale dies of a heart attack in his chambers. It sounds like a trick, and partly it is, but Grisham uses it to reset the table. The new judge is Tyrone Kipler, Black, former civil rights lawyer, sharp, fair, with no patience for bullying from either side. He reads the file, sees stalling, sets a firm trial date. Drummond smiles and adjusts. Rudy breathes for the first time in a hundred pages.

Donny Ray dies before trial. Grisham does not make it a courtroom death or a last minute save. He dies at home, with his parents, while Rudy is studying exhibits. Dot calls Rudy. The funeral is small. After that the case is no longer about paying for treatment. It is about punishment and about making a record. Dot and Buddy want someone to say what happened was wrong. Money matters because medical bills remain, but the anger matters more.

The case stops being about a transplant and starts being about whether a company can sell promises and then hire lawyers to avoid keeping them.

Trial against Leo Drummond

The trial takes up the last third and reads fast. Kipler runs a tight room. Jury selection is shown in detail. Rudy, coached by Deck street smarts, looks for jurors who have fought insurers, waited on hold, been denied. Drummond looks for jurors who trust business, respect contracts, dislike lawsuits. They seat a mixed box of Memphis working people, Black and white, old and young.

Rudy opening is shaky and sincere. He tells Donny Ray story simply. He admits he is young. He asks the jury to read the letters. Drummond opening is smooth. He says Great Benefit follows its policy, that medicine is uncertain, that transplant was not proven, that Rudy wants to punish a good employer for hard choices. His associates hand him notes without looking up.

Witness by witness, Rudy builds. Dot testifies about calls where no one gave a name, about being told to refile, about watching her son weaken while waiting. Buddy testifies briefly, stiff with grief. The treating doctor explains leukemia and transplant timing in plain terms. A former Great Benefit clerk, scared and angry, explains the bonus system for denials. Deck finds the claims manual with sections on avoiding payment. On cross, Drummond scores points. He makes the doctor admit no treatment guarantees life. He makes Dot admit she did not read every policy line. He is always polite, always prepared.

The middle of trial sags a little for me. There are too many exhibits read aloud, too many objections about foundation. Kipler sustains and overrules with crisp notes, but even he cannot make insurance forms lively. I kept going because I wanted to see Rudy stand up to Drummond, and Grisham delivers a few good moments where Rudy catches a witness in a flat denial and then shows the memo with initials.

Kelly story peaks during trial. She leaves Cliff for good, hides with help, then Cliff finds her. There is a violent confrontation that ends with Cliff dead. I will not lay out each blow because the book itself moves quickly past it, but the effect on Rudy is large. He hides evidence to protect her, lies to police by omission, and knows he has broken the rules he swore to keep. It is the one place where Rudy the idealist acts like Bruiser people. Grisham does not excuse it. Rudy feels sick after. Kelly shakes for days. It binds them, but not in a clean romantic way. More like two people who now share a secret they cannot tell.

Closing arguments are strong. Drummond warns against anger deciding money. Rudy asks for the policy amount plus a large punitive sum to make the company change. He does not shout. He reads one denial letter aloud, slowly, with dates. Then he sits.

The jury finds for the Blacks and awards a huge verdict, tens of millions in punitive damages on top of actual losses. The courtroom erupts. Dot cries. Deck grins. Drummond packs calmly because he knows what Rudy does not yet fully grasp. Great Benefit has been looting itself. Money moved to offshore accounts, reinsurance shells, executive payouts. The company that can be ordered to pay has little left to collect. Appeals will take years. Regulators are already circling.

Grisham lets the win stand and then empties it. The Blacks get sympathy and a paper judgment, not cash. Lawyers for the company file motions, claim insolvency, vanish into bankruptcy talk. Dot and Buddy are left with bills and a grave. Rudy is left with a reputation as the kid who beat Drummond and no fee to show for it, since his cut was a share of recovery.

Verdict on paper and what it costs

I admired this choice even as it frustrated me. A tidy payout would have betrayed the book. Grisham spent 300 pages showing how denial systems work. Letting one trial fix it would be false. Instead Rudy learns what many plaintiffs lawyers learn. You can win the room and still lose the money.

Miss Birdie thread closes with its own sting. She changes her will again, influenced by the preacher and family pressure, and Rudy gets far less than he hoped, or nothing worth counting after challenges. He does not fight hard. He is tired and a little ashamed to want it. He visits her once more, kind to the end.

Kelly and Rudy leave Memphis together at the end, driving west with little packed. He decides not to practice, at least for now. He passed the bar, won a trial, broke rules for someone he loves, watched a client die, and saw a giant verdict turn to air. That is enough law for him. Some readers will call this ending abrupt. I found it believable. Rudy entered for money and status. He leaves wanting quiet and work that does not require him to lie to himself.

So who should read it. If you like courtroom mechanics, from jury picks to cross, this is top tier Grisham, up there with his early books. If you like underdogs who prepare at midnight with borrowed books, Rudy will win you. If you want tight prose, look elsewhere. Sentences are serviceable, descriptions thin, women sometimes drawn more as symbols than people. Dot is vivid. Kelly is better than I expected but still seen mostly through Rudy need. Miss Birdie starts as comic relief and grows into something warmer, which I appreciated.

Where it drags. The middle discovery fights repeat. Drummond files, Rudy scrambles, Kipler resets, repeat. A few depositions could have been cut. Bruiser disappearance is never fully paid off. I wanted one more scene showing what his rot cost ordinary clients. And the insurance villainy is broad. Executives are greedy without faces. That keeps the anger simple, which helps pace but hurts depth.

Content notes from my copy. A young adult death from illness, grief and funeral scenes, domestic violence with hospital injuries, a violent self defense killing, coarse language, drinking, brief sexual content. Nothing feels inserted for shock. It all ties to power and money.

I closed it thinking about Deck line that sticks with me, paraphrased: the system does not need evil people, just tired people paid to say no. Rudy learns to say yes to the right clients and no to the game itself, even if it costs him the career he studied for. At 448 pages the book earns its length with trial momentum more than polish, and the image of Rudy and Kelly driving out of Memphis with a worthless judgment and a hard lesson stayed with me longer than any twist. If you read Grisham for plot and anger at rigged fights, this is one of his most direct shots.

FAQ

When was The Rainmaker published?

In 1995 with Doubleday. The hardcover runs 448 pages and the ISBN is 9780385424738.

Who are the main characters?

Rudy Baylor, Deck Shifflet, Dot and Buddy Black, Leo F. Drummond, Kelly Riker, and Miss Birdie.

Is it part of a series?

No. It is a standalone legal novel told in first person by Rudy Baylor. No sequel follows his story.