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51 pages 1 hour read

John Grisham

The Whistler

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

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Chapters 41-42 and EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 41-42 Summary

The final chapters are an account of the arrests and convictions. The FBI intercepts Dubose and two of his henchmen at the fourth hole of one of Dubose’s golf courses. As soon as the four of them are in custody, the FBI raids their offices. Fingerprints identify Dubose as actually Jack Henderson, formally part of a syndicate from Louisiana, who escaped from prison, changed his name, and started over in Florida. The ripple of arrests spreads outward to lesser members of the syndicate whose offices the FBI also ransacks. The FBI closes the casino. When the tribal chief and his son—the new reservation constable after Lyman Gritt—arrive on the scene, they too are arrested.

The judge’s girlfriend, Phyllis Turban, receives an anonymous call warning her that she and McDover are about to be arrested. Phyllis retrieves two bags full of gems and other small valuables and charters a flight to Panama City to meet McDover. From there, the plane is scheduled to take them to Barbados. However, the FBI intercepts them as McDover attempts to board the plane.

Lacy and JoHelen watch the news coverage from the safety of their Louisiana hideout. To them, it’s proof that justice is still alive. In a few days, the FBI decides it’s safe for JoHelen to come out of hiding, so she and Lacy return home.

Epilogue Summary

A few weeks after Lacy returns home from Louisiana, Greg Myers turns up on her doorstep. He explains that he disappeared for two reasons: One was that shortly after Lacy and Hugo’s phones were taken, Myers received an anonymous call, so he knew he’d been identified. The second was that he hoped his apparent murder would make the FBI more eager to get involved. He tells Lacy that Cooley is back as well. Lacy chides him and Cooley for abandoning the two women, but Myers is unrepentant. He tells her that he and Cooley are making up with Carlita and JoHelen.

With the old tribal chief in jail, the Tappacola elect Lyman Gritt as chief, and Lyman promises to get Junior Mace out of prison. Verna files a $10 million wrongful death suit against the Dubose syndicate estate, and Lacy files a suit for her own injuries. Myers, Cooley and JoHelen, split a payout of $10 million.

Phyllis and McDover plead guilty to bribery and money laundering. The trial judge sentences McDover to 25 years and delivers a 30-minute tirade about her greed, dishonesty, and cowardly betrayal of the voters who elected her. McDover stands straight and stoic, never taking her eyes off the judge. He finishes by summing up the story’s central message: “A stable society is built on notions of fairness and justice, and it’s left to ‘judges like you and me’ to make sure all citizens are protected from the corrupt, the violent, and the forces of evil” (423).

Chapters 41-42 and Epilogue Analysis

The final chapters are all summation and contain no narrative action. In effect, the action ends with Lacy and JoHelen’s escape to the cabin in Louisiana, which implies that the real story lay all along not in confronting the antagonists but in Lacy’s interactions with the other women in the story. Lacy’s retreat to safety might appear to imply weakness, but Lacy is a lawyer, not a law enforcement officer. Whenever a situation calls for direct and aggressive action, she leaves it to those trained and equipped for it. Lacy does her job superlatively well—and does it with a female sensibility that doesn’t make her less effective. However, she simultaneously has the stereotypically “masculine” qualities of drive and determination. She merely applies those qualities to a different set of priorities.

After summing up the arrests and convictions of the other criminals, the author takes more time with Judge McDover’s sentencing to convey the story’s underlying premise: that a functioning legal system depends on the incorruptibility of the people who administer it. The lecture from the sentencing judge is the cathartic release that confirms that justice has been fully done. A similar lecture to Vonn Dubose and his cronies wouldn’t provide the same sense of vindication because he’s too deeply corrupted to feel shame, and his job doesn’t involve upholding justice. McDover’s demeanor and conduct during the sentencing suggests that she does feel shame, although perhaps not remorse or sympathy for the people she hurt.

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