The Rainmaker

John Grisham’s 1995 novel The Rainmaker follows Rudy Baylor, a broke, newly minted law school graduate in Memphis, Tennessee, who takes a job with a shady, ambulance-chasing firm run by Bruiser Stone before striking out on his own. The book’s central legal thread is a bad-faith insurance lawsuit: Rudy represents Dot and Buddy Black, whose adult son Donny Ray is dying of leukemia, against Great Benefit Life Insurance, which denied his bone marrow transplant claim on flimsy pretexts while its employees were coached to routinely deny claims and reap bonuses. Rudy partners unofficially with Deck Shifflet, a disbarred former lawyer who never passed the bar and knows the insurance industry’s dirty tricks from the inside. A second plotline involves Rudy’s involvement with Kelly Riker, a battered wife he meets while handling a routine case, and his efforts to help her escape her abusive husband. The novel contrasts Rudy’s idealistic, underfunded practice with the well-heeled defense team from a large corporate firm, led by the relentless Leo F. Drummond, and with the broader corruption of the legal system. Set largely in Memphis courtrooms and the poverty of its clients, it is a David-versus-Goliath legal drama about insurance company misconduct, the costs of litigating against corporate power, and a young lawyer’s uneasy education in how the system actually works. The 1997 film adaptation starred Matt Damon as Rudy and Danny DeVito as Deck.