#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham returns to Florida, where The Whistler’s Lacy Stoltz takes on a cold case that reveals a judge’s darkest secrets.

“One of the best crime reads of the year . . . a world-class shocker, worth staying up all night to finish.”—The Wall Street Journal

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change.

Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

The man Jeri holds responsible for all these deaths is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.
 
He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction.
 
But the man keeps a record of all his victims and targets, people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. Lacy must work to take him down, while somehow keeping her name off his list.

As an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, Lacy Stoltz sees plenty of corruption among the men and women elected to the bench. Stoltz took on a crime syndicate that was paying millions to a crooked judge. Now, the crimes are even worse. The man hiding behind the black robe is not taking bribes--but he may be taking lives.

One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Mysteries of the Year