Rogue Lawyer
Rogue Lawyer • Book 1
by John Grisham
Narrated by Mark Deakins
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
Sebastian Rudd operates out of a bulletproof van, and Mark Deakins sounds exactly like someone who'd have bourbon in that van's mini-fridge.
- Great if you want: a morally grey lawyer who wins ugly and doesn't apologize
- Listening experience: episodic and propulsive — each case snaps shut before the next opens
- Narration: Deakins' dry, measured delivery nails Rudd's world-weary cynicism
- Skip if: you want a single tightly plotted mystery instead of a case anthology
About This Audiobook
Rogue Lawyer introduces Sebastian Rudd, who practices law from an armored van, carries a gun, and takes cases that no other attorney will touch: the tattooed defendant in a possible cult killing, a crime lord awaiting execution, a homeowner who shot at the SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house. Grisham writes Rudd as a man who believes in the adversarial system more deeply than anyone around him, even when — especially when — that belief is inconvenient. The episodic structure gives the novel the texture of a character study dressed in legal thriller clothing.
Mark Deakins narrates with a laconic, knowing quality well suited to Rudd's self-aware cynicism. His performance captures the character's moral seriousness beneath the practiced indifference. At eleven and a half hours the audiobook gives Deakins room to build Rudd's voice with the consistency of a character who has strong opinions about everything and most of them are correct.
