52 pages 1 hour read

John Grisham

The Judge's List

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Lacy is working in her office at the BJC. Things have gone downhill in the three years since she closed the Whistler case in which a judge was working with a crooked land developer to embezzle millions of dollars from a casino on nearby Indigenous land. Her colleagues from that period have all moved on to bigger and better jobs. Lacy is the only one left from the old guard in a department falling apart from bad management, lack of funding, and low morale. The receptionist announces that Lacy has a phone call from someone who does not want to give her name. The receptionist is barely competent. She needs someone to correct her and teach her how to do her job better, but Lacy does not have the energy.

The caller introduces herself as Margie—which she admits up front is an alias. She asks Lacy to meet her somewhere private outside of the BJC office. Lacy meets her at a coffee shop, and Margie tells her a story about a judge who killed her father and several other people.

After 12 years at the BJC doing what feels like petty, unchallenging work, Lacy is intrigued by a murder. The problem is that the BJC does not investigate murders.