Ratings31
Average rating3.5
On the right side of the law? Sort of? Sebastian Rudd is not your typical street lawyer. His office is a customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who also so happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddie. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. He defends people other lawyers won't go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult; a vicious crime lord on death row; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house. Why these clients? Because Sebastian believes everyone is entitled to a fair trial?even if he has to bend the law to secure one.
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1 primary book2 released booksRogue Lawyer is a 2-book series with 1 primary work first released in 2015 with contributions by John Grisham.
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It's been a too long while since I read a book that kept me so entertained and one that I did not want to finish. I reached the last page and I was dazed, I wanted more of it.
Full disclosure: I'm a John Grisham fan and so far I only had praise for his books.
To start off, things were moving very fast. Sometimes John Grisham's books are unexpected. Sebastian Rudd is a matter-of-fact guy, he goes straight to the point and he doesn't flourish anything. It took me very little to get into Rogue Lawyer, into this particular storytelling, and I was hooked not even two chapters in, and that's not much. The chapters are very short, some aren't even one page long, in my copy I think the longest was somewhere around 10 pages with most of them being 3-5 pages long. It's no wonder I read it so fast. I'm still a little dazed and need to recover, and I'm afraid it will be hard to get into another book so soon. I will try, though.
Sebastian Rudd is not the most ethical lawyer out there and he sure is colourful, but it was almost impossible to not like him. He's driven by a strong sense of justice and that swooped me off my feet. I might not approve his every stop in the journey, but I approve the end goal.
Part three of the book, the one about the warrior cops, brought me the most satisfaction. It was horrible what happened, but Rudd's performance in court made me both smug and emotional. Way to go! And Jillian's story was the hardest to read about, what awful things happened there... I shuddered in disgust reading those parts and I felt incredibly sad. The other cases were just as engaging and very interesting. I loved the wide range of clients Rudd had and the way he managed them all. Reading about his adventures, his tumultuous career, I really got to like Rudd and sympathise with him. I appreciated his manner of not kicking around the bush and his honesty.
The book is very fast paced, it has six parts, each dealing with a different case, but they are all connected by Sebastian Rudd. The cases happen linearly so it's more like Rudd's journal, let's say, where he writes about his clients, but also about his personal life. Despite this, I never felt like the book is a short story collection, Rogue Lawyer felt very much like a proper novel, one that has parts. About it being fast paced, it sure made me read faster and lose myself in the novel, but it had a downside too, and that was the ending. The book ended in the same manner, it felt abrupt to me. I'm still going to rate it very high because, hey, it's all in character, it doesn't deviate, it doesn't snuggle you in before being done and that's okay.
I'm not sure I made a lot of sense, so bottom line, I liked the book very much and I liked Sebastian Rudd very much.
May not be Grisham's best but I liked it over the last couple I read. Quick paced, multi-plotted story told in first person. I did feel that there was a bit too much telling rather than showing though.
Sebastian Rudd, is quite clearly the dark side of Harvey Specter. With only his job to cling on to save himself from drowning, Rudd, armed with only the law as a weapon goes about defending the street goons of America.
Though the book is a collection of short stories, there is a common thread between all of them, which gives an impression of a continuous story.
The book is a constant thriller, though I was a little bit disappointed at the way the things ended with the Zapate brothers, overall it's a good read.