The Client

The Client is a legal thriller by the American writer John Grisham, published in 1993 and set mostly in Memphis and New Orleans. It spent more than forty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was his fourth novel.

The Senator in the case, Boyd Boyette of Louisiana, has disappeared, and because he had spoken publicly against a large toxic landfill project backed by men known to be connected to organised crime, his murder is suspected almost immediately. There is no body, and the United States Attorney is under pressure to produce one.

Mark Sway is eleven and knows where the body is, because the lawyer who knew drove into the lot where the two boys were sitting. The novel is built on the difficulty of his position: he cannot tell what he knows without putting his family in danger, he cannot stay silent without being held in contempt by an ambitious prosecutor, and the people who want him quiet are not constrained by any court. His only ally is Reggie Love, a lawyer of four years' standing who takes on the case when nobody else will.