The Whistler

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-13

Chapters 14-19

Chapters 20-23

Chapters 24-28

Chapters 29-35

Chapters 36-40

Chapters 41-42 and Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary

The first step in Lacy and Hugo’s investigation is to interview Junior Mace, the man on death row who supposedly killed his wife and Son Rozko. On the way to the prison, Lacy reflects on the psychological damage done by solitary confinement. Junior has been on death row for 15 years. He is 52 and has long, gray hair, dark skin, and sad brown eyes. When Lacy asks him if he knows the name Vonn Dubose, he answers no—but his flinch when he says it tells them otherwise. He tells them he suspects Judge McDonald knows the truth—that he didn’t kill his wife and Son Rozko, but he has no proof. The only other people who might know anything that would help his case are the two jailhouse snitches who testified that he bragged to them about killing his wife and Rozko, but they both disappeared shortly after the trial. If they were still alive and could be found, they might confess to having been paid for their testimony.

Junior tells Lacy and Hugo that now he’s not even sure he was on the right side of the debate over the casino. His people now are prosperous—they receive education, healthcare, college expenses for those who want to go, and a dividend for every adult of $5,000 a month. He has heard some rumors of corruption but doesn’t know any details. The only person he knows who might know anything about that is his brother, Wilton.

Chapter 6 Summary

Judge Claudia McDover thinks of Treasure Key as “her” casino. It would never have been built without her support. For 11 years, she has received a percentage of the money Vonn Dubose scams from the profit and has become a wealthy woman. She doesn’t particularly like the criminals she works with, but she believes their conspiracy is foolproof. On the first Wednesday of the month, she goes to one of her four condos. Dubose arrives with a satchel containing a quarter million in cash, her share of the take from the casino.

Claudia hides the fact that she’s afraid of Dubose. During Junior Mace’s trial, she believed that Mace was guilty of murdering his wife and Rozko, but after Mace’s conviction, she began to suspect that Dubose had framed him. However, she sees no reason to do anything about that injustice. In her mind, Junior is “gone.” Her life is good, and she doesn’t want Dubose to turn on her.

Claudia tells Dubose she’s thinking of retiring. Dubose isn’t opposed to letting her go. It would leave him with an additional quarter million dollars a month to pocket. During the conversation, Dubose mentions that finding a judge as easily corrupted as her won’t be easy. Claudia responds that she was never innocent; she went to law school to get revenge on her ex-husband and his lawyers.

Chapter 7 Summary

Greg Myers meets with his contact, Cooley, the intermediary between Myers and the mole (whom Cooley calls the Whistler) who has been feeding them information about the judge. The mole knows about the condo but not what the judge does there. The mole’s report says that shortly after each meeting at the condo, the judge takes a trip with her girlfriend, Phyllis Turban, to New York or New Orleans. They also vacation in Singapore and Barbados. The mole speculates that they’re buying easily transported assets—in essence, money-laundering.

Myers speculates that the mole is someone who works near the judge, but Cooley refuses to give him more specific information except that the mole’s motivation is hatred of the judge and greed for the whistleblower payout if their information leads to a conviction.

Lacy returns home from work and reflects on her life: She’s happy living alone with her French bulldog, Frankie. Her life is uncomplicated, and she has no obligations to anyone. Lacy dates but hasn’t found anyone she wants to settle down with. She has many female friends whose company she enjoys. Some are single like her, some are divorced, and some are married—either happily or unhappily. As far as she can tell, having a man around wouldn’t guarantee that she’d be happier than she is now.

Chapter 8 Summary

Hugo and Lacy call on Junior Mace’s brother, Wilton. According to Wilton, the tribe is still split over the casino debate. The winners haven’t forgiven the losers and vice versa. Wilton admits that the opposition to the casino was probably wrong, as it lifted everyone out of poverty. On the other hand, the guaranteed income promotes idleness, which leads to more alcohol and drug use. Also, when a Tappacola woman marries, her dividend from the casino is cut in half. This has led to lower marriage rates and fewer children.

Mason never believed that his brother’s wife was having an affair with Son Rozko. He has been using his casino dividend to pay a private investigator and the lawyers working Junior’s appeal. When asked about Von Dubose, he admits to hearing a rumor that someone by that name orchestrated the push to build the casino. Many believe that the criminal element intimidated the tribal chief and is skimming from the casino profits, but no one has questioned or challenged the situation because the tribe doesn’t trust outsiders, and nobody wants to rock the boat and risk losing the casino dividends.

Chapters 5-8 Analysis

Through Lacy, the author describes some of the problems with the legal and penal system. In addition to a too-high incidence of false convictions, prison practices like solitary confinement can cause psychological damage. While some might hold the attitude that prison is intentionally unpleasant, in this instance, given that Junior is innocent of the crime, the state has no grounds for imposing psychological punishment, and (as Lacy later points out to her brother) the incidence of false convictions is far higher than most people want to admit.

The casino has corrupted even Junior and his brother Wilton. They initially opposed it, foreseeing its pernicious influence—the increase in alcohol and drug use, the decrease in individual ambition, and the suspected corruption surrounding its being built. However, seeing the benefits of prosperity, they have come to believe they were wrong in their opposition. However, their concerns were legitimate. Although the casino benefits the tribe in many ways, it also promotes corruption in the tribal leaders, who overlook the skimming and money-laundering—and eventually cover up the syndicate’s involvement in a death. Even ordinary individuals are aware on some level of the criminal activity, but they want their money and are willing to keep their mouths shut in exchange.

The criminal element doesn’t arise from the casino itself. Most tribes contract with reputable companies to manage their casinos, and although they experience some of the same cultural problems that plague the Tappacola, they don’t have to deal with the kind of organized crime that backed Treasure Key being built.

In the meeting between Vonn Dubose and Judge McDover in Chapter 6, the author uses the third-person omniscient point of view, which allows him to show the thoughts of both characters in the scene. When done poorly, this is called head-hopping, and readers can find it irritating and confusing. In this case, the author does it well, and it effectively conveys the characters’ motives and relationship.

Judge McDover fears and dislikes Dubose but justifies her continued association with him on the grounds that their scam is “foolproof.” In her mind, the crime is in “getting caught,” and the judge therefore thinks of Junior as being “gone” even though she recognizes that he isn’t guilty. The conviction has erased him as a person, just as public perception erases prisoners as human beings and makes the state’s infliction of psychological punishment acceptable.

Lacy’s contentment with being single is an extension of the theme of woman-to-woman friendships. Lacy experiences being a woman as being complete within herself. She doesn’t define herself in terms of having (or not having) a man in her life, and the relationships that matter most to her are those with other women.