John Grisham didn’t realize two years ago that the subject of his latest legal thriller, “The Rooster Bar,” would be so topical when the book was released.  It was inspired by an article in “The Atlantic” called “The Law-School Scam.”  When he did some research he was shocked to find that when they graduate law students carry student loan debt from $75,000 to $260,000 depending on the type of law school they attended.  Factor in undergraduate costs and the amount is even higher.  With that sort of debt, it is hard to start a family, buy a house or a car, and just the presence of all that debt is financially and emotionally crippling.

               

Using this research, Grisham starts off his latest novel with the suicide of a third-year law school student.  His three friends are shocked and even more so when they discover from his notes that the for-profit law school in Washington, D.C. where they are struggling to graduate is owned by a billionaire hedge-fund manager, Hinds Rackley, who also owns the bank that gave them their student loans.

               

The three decide to get revenge by establishing false IDs, and a phony law firm smartly called Upshaw, Park & Lane (short for Unlicensed Practice of Law) to support them while they expose Rackley for the scum he is.  Complicating their plotting is the fate of one of the three whose immigrant family is in the process of being deported to Senegal.

               

Since this is a Grisham novel expect a lot of action and even more legal maneuvering as our three intrepid almost-lawyers use the law to try to take down a billionaire wrong-doer.

               

Other new novels to tempt your reading urges are “The Cuban Affair” by Nelson DeMille, “The Rules of Magic” by Alice Hoffman, “Manhattan Beach” by Jennifer Egan, “Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward, “The Last Ballad” by Wiley Cash, “A Column of Fire” by Ken Follett, “The Indigo Girl” by Natasha Boyd, and “Sleeping Beauties “ by Stephen and Owen King.