bibliography john grisham

John Grisham Books In Order

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The American south has long been a point of interest to historians as it was the place where slavery once boomed and racisim ran rampant. Although the land has been a place of much turmoil, some positive things have arisen for it, as it was in Jonesboro, Arkansas that John Grisham was born. He arrived in the world on February 8, 1955, when cotton was still a major product of the south. His father happened to be a cotton farmer at the time.

However, the family began to move around to different areas, still south of the Mason-Dixon Line, while Grisham was in his youth. They settled down again in Southaven, Mississippi and that is where the young John Grisham became determined to be a baseball player for his profession. However, his mother had different aspirations for her son and began grooming him for college, although she herself had never received a formal education.

Her efforts did prove fruitful, as John Grisham successfully attended and graduated from Mississippi State University and later law school, graduating from Ole Miss. After having childhood desire to become a MLB player, settling on a legal career was not a simple thing for John Grisham. He had changed majors three times while in college and switched jobs several times during his teenage and young adult years.

As a lawyer, Grisham also made changes, switching from being a tax lawyer to trial lawyer, stating a dislike for the burdensome “complexity and lunacy” tax lawyers often face. His career as a trial lawyer was never fated to last long as well. Having graduated from law school in 1983, Grisham was elected to his state’s House of Representatives that same year, serving the Democratic Party until 1990. His legal practice lasted a decade.

While hanging around the courts in 1984, Grisham met a young girl with an intriguing story to tell about a case in which she was involved. The things she told him about her life touched him so much that he began to write his first novel based on her story. It was published in 1989 and is called Time to Kill. As a new author, Grisham had difficulty finding a publisher for his first book. He finally found one that was willing to let him have a printing of 5,000 copies.

The day after his first novel was released, Grisham went straight back to writing, working on his second novel, without waiting to find out if he would be a success. His confidence apparently was well-founded because his second novel, The Firm, stayed on the Best Seller List for New York Times an impressive 47 weeks after its release and was the top selling novel for 1991. It was at that time that Grisham decided to leave legal practice and become a full time writer.

Throughout his writing career, John Grisham has seen many successes, starting with his very first book and continuing through each subsequent novel. He is the author behind many well-recognized titles, including The Pelican Brief, as well as The Rainmaker, The Racketeer, A Painted House, amongst several others.

For his great writing, Grisham has been honored with several awards, including the Distinguished Author Award named after Peggy V. Helmerich, the Galaxy British Book lifetime achievement award, the legal fiction award from Harper Lee, and the USC Scripter award. Nevertheless, Grisham’s writing has not solely focused on crafting novels for adult audiences. He has also written a series of legal thrillers geared at children and pre-teens.

Inside John Grisham Novels:

Two of the books Grisham is most well-known for also happen to be the very first two novels he ever released; The Firm and Time to Kill. The Firm, released in 1991, has sold more than seven million copies. It is the second novel that he wrote and is the gripping tale about a young man named Mitchell V. McDeere who, fresh out of law school, decides to work at a Memphis law firm, appeased by their generous offer of a high salary, new BMW, and nice house with low interest mortgage.

Soon after he arrives, two of his collogues at the firm die in a mysterious accident. During their memorial service, Mitch learns that there have been others who worked at the firm and mysteriously died. The information causes him to be very suspicious. His intuition is later validated when he gets approached by the FBI who wants his help in gathering evidence against those at the law firm, revealing the fact that they are actually involved in organized crime.

Grisham’s first novel, Time to Kill was the one based off his chance meeting with a young girl as he hung around the courts one day. The story is about a ten-year-old girl in the south who happens to be African American and gets raped by two racist white men. The girl’s father finds out the story of the attack on his daughter and realizes that a similar incident happened a while back.

In an effort to protect others from the same harm, he kills the two white men and is later arrested. He then calls his friend Jake to help, but the case is made more complicated by the KKK seeking revenge for the death of the two men. They start riots outside the courtroom, kill the frail husband of Jake’s assistant, wire Jake’s car with a bomb, and eventually burn his house down.

The Transformation of John Grisham Books Into Movies:

Grisham has experienced much success with the silver screen. More than eight of the novels he has written have been adapted into films and performed well at the box office. This includes The Firm, which became a film in 1993, and was later made into a TV series.

The movie starred Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Time to Kill hit box offices in 1996 and starred Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Ashley Judd, and several other stars. Other novels written by Grisham that have become movies include, The Client in 1994, The Chamber in 1996, The Rainmaker in 1997, Mickey in 2004, and several others.

47 Responses to “John Grisham”

Love all Mr. Grisham’s books, but The Street Lawyer is one of my favorites. Carry on, Sir!

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John Grisham

Born on February 8, 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, John Grisham worked as an attorney and Mississippi legislator before becoming a best-selling novelist with works like The Firm , The Pelican Brief  and A Time to Kill , all of which were turned into hit films. Grisham has continued to publish an array of titles, such as Bleachers  and The Litigators , and has also worked in screenwriting, as seen with the 2003 baseball film Mickey .

Background and Early Career

John Grisham Jr. was born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The second-oldest of five siblings, he developed a love for books early on. Grisham and his family moved around for a while, due to job opportunities for his father, who worked in construction, eventually settling in Southaven, Mississippi. Initially thinking of a pro baseball career and working a variety of jobs before college, Grisham went on to study accounting at Mississippi State University and then law at the University of Mississippi, graduating in 1981.

Grisham wed Renee Jones in May of that year, with the couple going on to have two children. After starting his law career as a tax attorney, Grisham set up a practice doing personal injury and criminal defense work in Southaven, and in 1983 he earned a seat in the state legislature on the Democratic ticket, serving through the rest of the decade.

Signs to House with 'The Firm'

During a trial in 1984, Grisham heard the horrifying details of a young girl recounting her experience of surviving rape. This catalyzed the attorney to start writing a novel that examined the issue, focusing on the actions of a fictional father and an attorney. The finished book, A Time to Kill , would initially get a 5,000-copy printing from Wynwood Press.

Array of Best Sellers

While writing his next novel,  The Pelican Brief , Grisham took the words of a retail chain executive to heart and made the commitment to complete a book a year. The Pelican Brief was published in 1992 and became a No. 1 New York Times best seller. In the coming years, Grisham followed with an array of hit titles, including The Client (1993), The  Runaway Jury (1996), Bleachers (2003), Playing for Pizza (2007) and The Litigators (2011), among many others. His Time to Kill sequel, Sycamore Row , was released in 2013. More recent titles include Gray Mountain (2014), Rogue Lawyer (2015) and The Whistler (2016).

Grisham has worked in other literary genres outside of the adult novel as well, as seen with his nonfiction work The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006), the short-story collection Ford County and the young adult series  Theodore Boone .

Hit Film Adaptations

Besides The Firm , numerous other Grisham books have been turned into major big-screen ventures, including Pelican Brief (1993), The Client (1994), A Time to Kill (1996), The Chamber (1996), The Rainmaker (1997), Runaway Jury (2003) and Christmas with the Kranks (2004), which was based on Grisham's 2001 novel  Skipping Christmas . With a changing movie-industry climate, over time Grisham has increasingly turned to the world of television, with The Firm becoming a NBC series in 2012.

Grisham has continued to nurture his love for baseball, overseeing the construction of multiple baseball fields around his home and becoming a Little League commissioner. He has also provided funding for the Southern publication Oxford American .

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1955
• Birth date: February 8, 1955
• Birth State: Arkansas
• Birth City: Jonesboro
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: John Grisham is a best-selling author known for many of his legal thrillers, such as ‘The Firm,’ ‘The Pelican Brief,’ ‘A Time to Kill’ and ‘The Runaway Jury.’
• Writing and Publishing
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• University of Mississippi
• Mississippi State University
• Occupations

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: John Grisham Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/john-grisham
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 16, 2019
• Original Published Date: March 2, 2015
• [Writing] was more difficult than laying asphalt, and at times more frustrating than selling underwear. But it paid off. Eventually, I was able to leave the law and quit politics. Writing’s still the most difficult job I’ve ever had — but it’s worth it.
• My name became a brand and I'd love to say it was the plan from the start. But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since.
• I wanted to be Tom Sawyer. I loved that romanticized view of a kid's life. It wasn't until a lot later that I realized there was more going on with Tom and Huck than just an adventure.
• After you write 10 or 12 books in a certain genre, you think, 'OK, can I write something else, or am I locked in here?'
• ...if I can take the wrongful execution of a man in Texas to make people stop and think about this rush to execute people that we have in this country, I will. If I have access to a soapbox, then the least I can do is occasionally use it.

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• John Grisham

John Grisham books in order

John Ray Grisham Jr., popularly known as John Grisham, is an American attorney and award-winning author of legal thrillers, young adult and non-fiction books.

Born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Grisham holds a J.D. degree from the University of Mississippi, School of Law, one which he acquired in 1981.

Upon graduating from law school, Grisham started practicing law, with a focus on criminal defense and personal injury litigation.

He was elected to the Mississippi state House of Representatives in 1983, where he served until 1990.

Inspired by cases and testimony, Grisham began writing for fun in the wee hours of the morning before going to work.

His debut novel, A Time to Kill, was published in 1989, while his second novel, The Firm (1991) , was received well, selling more than seven million copies.

The book was also adapted into a 1993 feature film, The Firm, starring Tom Cruise.

Other books by the author that have been adapted into films include: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, Skipping Christmas, and A Time to Kill.

Genres: Legal Thriller, Non-fiction, Thriller, Young Adult

United States

Website: http://www.jgrisham.com/

• A Painted House
• A Time for Mercy
• A Time to Kill

Camino Island

• Camino Winds
• Don't Quit Your Day Job
• Fetching Raymond
• Ford County
• Gray Mountain
• Playing for Pizza
• Rogue Lawyer
• Skipping Christmas
• Sparring Partners
• Sycamore Row
• The Abduction
• The Accomplice
• The Accused
• The Activist
• The Associate
• The Boys from Biloxi
• The Brethren
• The Chamber
• The Confession
• The Fugitive
• The Guardians
• The Innocent Man
• The Judge's List
• The King of Torts
• The Last Juror
• The Litigators
• The Partner
• The Pelican Brief
• The Racketeer
• The Rainmaker
• The Reckoning
• The Rooster Bar
• The Runaway Jury
• The Scandal
• The Street Lawyer
• The Summons
• The Testament
• The Testament / A Time to Kill
• The WaveDancer Benefit
• The Whistler
• Three Classic Thrillers (The Firm / The Appeal / The Chamber)
• Witness to a Trial
• The Firm (1991)
• The Pelican Brief (1992)
• The Client (1993)
• The Chamber (1994)
• The Rainmaker (1995)
• The Runaway Jury (1996)
• The Partner (1997)
• The Street Lawyer (1998)
• The Testament (1999)
• The Brethren (2000)
• A Painted House (2000)
• Skipping Christmas (2001)
• The Summons (2002)
• The King of Torts (2002)
• Bleachers (2003)
• The Last Juror (2003)
• The Broker (2004)
• Playing for Pizza (2007)
• The Appeal (2007)
• The Associate (2009)
• The Confession (2010)
• The Litigators (2011)
• Calico Joe (2012)
• The Racketeer (2012)
• Gray Mountain (2014)
• Rogue Lawyer (2015)
• The Rooster Bar (2017)
• The Reckoning (2018)
• The Guardians (2019)
• Sooley (2021)
• The Boys from Biloxi (2022)
• Camino Island (2017)
• Camino Winds (2020)

Collections

• Ford County (2009)
• Sparring Partners (2022)

Jake Brigance

• A Time to Kill (1989)
• Sycamore Row (2013)
• A Time for Mercy (2020)

Lacy Stoltz

• The Whistler (2016)
• The Judge's List (2021)

Non-fiction

• The WaveDancer Benefit (2002)
• The Innocent Man (2006)
• Don't Quit Your Day Job (2010)
• Fetching Raymond (2011)
• The Tumor (2015)
• Partners (2016)
• Witness to a Trial (2016)

Omnibus Books

• The Testament / A Time to Kill (1988)
• Three Classic Thrillers (The Firm / The Appeal / The Chamber) (2012)

Theodore Boone

• Kid Lawyer (2010)
• The Abduction (2010)
• The Accused (2012)
• The Activist (2013)
• The Fugitive (2015)
• The Scandal (2015)
• The Accomplice (2019)

Detailed book overview

When Mitch McDeere signed on with Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought that he and his beautiful wife, Abby, were on their way.

The firm leased him a BMW, paid off his school loans, arranged a mortgage, and hired the McDeeres a decorator. Mitch should have remembered what his brother Ray–doing fifteen years in a Tennessee jail–already knew: You never get nothing for nothing. 

Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch’s firm and needs his help. Mitch is caught between a rock and a hard place, with no choice–if he wants to live.

In suburban Georgetown, a killer’s Reeboks whisper on the floor of a posh home. In a seedy D.C. porno house, a patron is swiftly garroted to death. The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief.

To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it’s political dynamite. Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder–a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds that there is only one person–an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate–she can trust to help her piece together the deadly puzzle.

Somewhere between the bayous of Louisiana and the White House’s inner sanctums, a violent cover-up is being engineered. For someone has read Darby’s brief–someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime.

Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother are sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer leaves Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most-sought-after dead body in America.

Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client—even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom...or cost them both their lives.

I was a lawyer once, and represented people charged with all sorts of crimes. Fortunately, I never had a client convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. I never had to go to death row, never had to do the things the lawyers do in this story.

Since I despise research, I did what I normally do when writing a novel. I found lawyers with expertise, and I befriended them. I called them at all hours and picked their brains. And it is here that I thank them.

Leonard Vincent has been the attorney for the Mississippi Department of Corrections for many years, and he opened his office to me. He helped me with the law, showed me his files, took me to death row, and toured me around the vast state penitentiary known simply as Parchman. He told me many stories that somehow found their way into this one. Leonard and I are still struggling with the moral perplexities of the death penalty, and I suspect we always will. Thanks also to his staff, and to the guards and personnel at Parchman.

It’s summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor’s shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn’t have a job or a prayer—except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it.

By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him. And suddenly he’s in over his head, plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuverings. A case that started small is exploding into a thunderous million-dollar war of nerves, skill, and outright violence—a fight that could cost one young lawyer his life, or turn him into the biggest rainmaker in the land.

They are at the center of a multimillion-dollar legal hurricane: twelve men and women who have been investigated, watched, manipulated, and harassed by high-priced lawyers and consultants who will stop at nothing to secure a verdict. Now the jury must make a decision in the most explosive civil trial of the century, a precedent-setting lawsuit against a giant tobacco company. But only a handful of people know the truth: that this jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.

He is known only as Juror #2. But he has a name, a past, and he has planned his every move with the help of a beautiful woman on the outside. Now, while a corporate empire hangs in the balance, while a grieving family waits, and while lawyers are plunged into a battle for their careers, the truth about Juror #2 is about to explode in a cross fire of greed and corruption—and with justice fighting for its life.

Once he was a well-liked, well-paid young partner in a thriving Mississippi law firm. Then Patrick Lanigan stole ninety million dollars from his own firm—and ran for his life. For four years, he evaded men who were rich and powerful, and who would stop at nothing to find him. Then, inevitably, on the edge of the Brazilian jungle, they finally tracked him down.

Now Patrick is coming home. And in the Mississippi city where it all began, an extraordinary trial is about to begin. As prosecutors circle like sharks, as Patrick’s lawyer prepares his defense, as Patrick’s lover prays for his deliverance and his former partners wait for their revenge, another story is about to emerge. Because Patrick Lanigan, the most reviled white-collar criminal of his time, knows something that no one else in the world knows. He knows the truth.

Michael Brock is billing the hours, making the money, rushing relentlessly to the top of Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm. One step away from partnership, Michael has it all. Then, in an instant, it all comes undone.

A homeless man takes nine lawyers hostage in the firm’s plush offices. When it is all over, the man’s blood is splattered on Michael’s face—and suddenly Michael is willing to do the unthinkable. Rediscovering a conscience he lost long ago, Michael is leaving the big time for the streets where his attacker once lived—and where society’s powerless need an advocate for justice.

But there’s one break Michael can’t make: from a secret that has floated up from the depths of Drake & Sweeney, from a confidential file that is now in Michael’s hands, and from a conspiracy that has already taken lives. Now Michael’s former partners are about to become his bitter enemies. Because to them, Michael Brock is the most dangerous man on the streets.

In a plush Virginia office, a rich, angry old man is furiously rewriting his will. With his death just hours away, Troy Phelan wants to send a message to his children, his ex-wives, and his minions—a message that will touch off a vicious legal battle and transform dozens of lives. Because Troy Phelan’s new will names a sole surprise heir to his eleven-billion-dollar fortune: a mysterious woman named Rachel Lane, a missionary living deep in the jungles of Brazil.

Enter the lawyers. Nate O’Riley is fresh out of rehab, a disgraced corporate attorney handpicked for his last job: to find Rachel Lane at any cost. As Phelan’s family circles like vultures in D.C., Nate goes crashing through the Brazilian jungle, entering a world where money means nothing, where death is just one misstep away, and where a woman—pursued by enemies and friends alike—holds a stunning surprise of her own.

They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. The third for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong. Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich—very fast.

And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam—while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt. A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips, and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn’t be better. Because they’ve just found the perfect victim.

Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers — and two very dangerous men — came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke’s world.

A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A fatherless baby is born...and someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly, bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter lives — and change his family and his town forever....

Imagine a year without Christmas. No crowded malls, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That’s just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they’ll skip the holiday altogether.

Theirs will be the only house on Hemlock Street without a rooftop Frosty, they won’t be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash, they aren’t even going to have a tree. They won’t need one, because come December 25 they’re setting sail on a Caribbean cruise.

But as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences—and isn’t half as easy as they’d imagined.

A classic tale for modern times, Skipping Christmas offers a hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that have become part of our holiday tradition.

A pillar of the community who towered over local law and politics for forty years, Judge Atlee is now a shadow of his former self—a sick, lonely old man who has withdrawn to his sprawling ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. Knowing that the end is near, Judge Atlee has issued a summons for his two sons to return to Clanton to discuss his estate. Ray Atlee is the elder, a Virginia law professor, newly single, still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. Forrest is Ray’s younger brother, the family’s black sheep.

The summons is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study. Ray reluctantly heads south to his hometown, to the place he now prefers to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray...and perhaps to someone else.

The Office of the Public Defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.

As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts.

High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty.

Now, as Coach Rake’s “boys” sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake—or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, a man who must finally forgive his coach—and himself—before he can get on with life, the stakes are especially high.

In 1970, Willie Traynor comes to Clanton, Mississippi, in a Triumph Spitfire and a fog of vague ambitions. Within a year, the twenty-three-year-old finds himself the owner of Ford County’s only newspaper, famous for its well-crafted obituaries. While the rest of America is in the grips of turmoil, Clanton lives on the edge of another age—until the brutal murder of a young mother rocks the town and thrusts Willie into the center of a storm.

Daring to report the true horrors of the crime, Willie makes as many friends as enemies in Clanton, and over the next decade he sometimes wonders how he got there in the first place. But he can never escape the crime that shattered his innocence or the criminal whose evil left an indelible stain. Because as the ghosts of the South’s past gather around Willie, as tension swirls around Clanton, men and women who served on a jury nine years ago are starting to die one by one—as a killer exacts the ultimate revenge.

In his final hours in office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems that Backman, in his heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, Who will kill him?

Rick Dockery is the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC Championship game, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually gets into the game. With a seventeen-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provides what is arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he becomes a national laughingstock—and is immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.

But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Rick finally gets a job—as the starting quarterback for the Mighty Panthers . . . of Parma, Italy. The Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player—any former NFL player—at their helm. And now they’ve got Rick, who knows nothing about Parma (not even where it is) and doesn’t speak a word of Italian. To say that Italy—the land of fine wines, extremely small cars, and football americano—holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement.

In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.

Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided?

The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. 

Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.

Kyle McAvoy possesses an outstanding legal mind. Good-looking and affable, he has a glittering future. He also has a dark secret that could destroy his dreams, his career, even his life. One night that secret catches up with him.

The men who accost Kyle have a compromising video they’ll use to ruin him–unless he does exactly what they say. What they offer Kyle is something any ambitious young lawyer would kill for: a job in Manhattan as an associate at the world’s largest law firm. If Kyle accepts, he’ll be on the fast track to partnership and a fortune. But there’s a catch. Kyle won’t be working for the firm but against it in a dispute between two powerful defense contractors worth billions.

Now Kyle is caught between the criminal forces manipulating him, the FBI, and his own law firm–in a malignant conspiracy not even Kyle with all his intellect, cunning, and bravery may be able to escape alive.

An innocent man is about to be executed.

Only a guilty man can save him.  

In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, Travis Boyette abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.

Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess. But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

The partners at Finley & Figg often refer to themselves as a “boutique law firm.” Boutique, as in chic, selective, and prosperous. Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are none of these things. They are a two-bit operation of ambulance chasers who bicker like an old married couple. Until change comes their way—or, more accurately, stumbles in. After leaving a fast-track career and going on a serious bender, David Zinc is sober, unemployed, and desperate enough to take a job at Finley & Figg.

Now the firm is ready to tackle a case that could make the partners rich—without requiring them to actually practice much law. A class action suit has been brought against Varrick Labs, a pharmaceutical giant with annual sales of $25 billion, alleging that Krayoxx, its most popular drug, causes heart attacks. Wally smells money. All Finley & Figg has to do is find a handful of Krayoxx users to join the suit. It almost seems too good to be true...and it is.

It’s the summer of 1973, and Joe Castle is the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone has ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzles Chicago Cubs fans as he hits home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shatters all rookie records. Calico Joe quickly becomes the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing New York Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faces Calico Joe, Paul is in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his dad. Then Warren throws a fastball that will change their lives forever.

In the history of the United States, only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five. His body is found in his remote lakeside cabin. There is no sign of forced entry or struggle. Just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied.

One man, a former attorney, knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and why. But that man, Malcolm Bannister, is currently residing in the Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland. Though serving time, Malcolm has an ace up his sleeve. He has information the FBI would love to know. Malcolm would love to tell them. But everything has a price—and the man known as the Racketeer wasn’t born yesterday.

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer’s career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track—until the recession hits and she is downsized, furloughed, and escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, all for a slim chance of getting rehired.

In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about. Samantha’s new job takes her into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack. But some of the locals aren’t so thrilled to have a big-city lawyer in town, and within weeks Samantha is engulfed in litigation that turns deadly. Because like most small towns, Brady harbors big secrets that some will kill to conceal.

On the right side of the law—sort of—Sebastian Rudd is not your typical street lawyer. His office is a customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who also so happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddie. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. He defends people other lawyers won’t go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult; a vicious crime lord on death row; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house. Why these clients? Because Sebastian believes everyone is entitled to a fair trial—even if he has to bend the law to secure one.

Mark, Todd, and Zola came to law school to change the world, to make it a better place. But now, as third-year students, these close friends realize they have been duped. They all borrowed heavily to attend a third-tier for-profit law school so mediocre that its graduates rarely pass the bar exam, let alone get good jobs. And when they learn that their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge-fund operator who also happens to own a bank specializing in student loans, the three know they have been caught up in The Great Law School Scam.

But maybe there’s a way out. Maybe there’s a way to escape their crushing debt, expose the bank and the scam, and make a few bucks in the process. But to do so, they would first have to quit school. And leaving law school a few short months before graduation would be completely crazy, right? Well, yes and no...

October 1946, Clanton, Mississippi

Pete Banning was Clanton, Mississippi’s favorite son—a decorated World War II hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning he rose early, drove into town, and committed a shocking crime. Pete's only statement about it—to the sheriff, to his lawyers, to the judge, to the jury, and to his family—was: "I have nothing to say." He was not afraid of death and was willing to take his motive to the grave.

In a major novel unlike anything he has written before, John Grisham takes us on an incredible journey, from the Jim Crow South to the jungles of the Philippines during World War II; from an insane asylum filled with secrets to the Clanton courtroom where Pete’s defense attorney tries desperately to save him.

In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo’s.

Quincy was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister.

Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought.

In the summer of his seventeenth year, Sam­uel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basket­ball tournament. He has never been away from home, nor has he ever been on an airplane. The opportunity to be scouted by dozens of college coaches is a dream come true.

Samuel is an amazing athlete, with speed, quick­ness, and an astonishing vertical leap. The rest of his game, though, needs work, and the American coaches are less than impressed.

During the tournament, Samuel receives dev­astating news from home: A civil war is raging across South Sudan, and rebel troops have ran­sacked his village. His father is dead, his sister is missing, and his mother and two younger brothers are in a refugee camp.

Samuel desperately wants to go home, but it’s just not possible. Partly out of sympathy, the coach of North Carolina Central offers him a scholar­ship. Samuel moves to Durham, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season. There is plenty of more mature talent and he isn’t immediately needed.

But Samuel has something no other player has: a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America. He works tirelessly on his game, shooting baskets every morning at dawn by himself in the gym, and soon he’s dominating everyone in practice. With the Central team los­ing and suffering injury after injury, Sooley, as he is nicknamed, is called off the bench. And the legend begins.

But how far can Sooley take his team? And will success allow him to save his family?

Two sons of immigrant families grow up as friends, only to ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law.

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia.

Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends, as well as Little League all-stars. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast.” Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. 

Keith went to law school and followed in his father’s footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father’s clubs. The two families were headed for a showdown, one that would happen in a courtroom.

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, impossible to resist.

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in unsavory ventures.

Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous monetary offer convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Cable’s circle of literary friends, to get close to the ringleader, to discover his secrets.

But soon Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise—as only John Grisham can deliver it.

Just as Bruce Cable’s Bay Books is preparing for the return of bestselling author Mercer Mann, Hurricane Leo veers from its predicted course and heads straight for Camino Island. Florida’s governor orders a mandatory evacuation, and most residents board up their houses and flee to the mainland, but Bruce decides to stay and ride out the storm.

The hurricane is devastating: Homes and condos are leveled, hotels and storefronts ruined, streets flooded—and a dozen people lose their lives. One of the apparent victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce’s and an author of thrillers. But the nature of Nelson’s injuries suggests that the storm wasn’t the cause of his death: He has suffered several suspicious blows to the head.

Who would want Nelson dead? The local police are overwhelmed in the aftermath of the storm and ill-equipped to handle the case. Bruce begins to wonder if the shady characters in Nelson’s novels might be more real than fictional. And somewhere on Nelson’s computer is the manuscript of his new book. Could the key to the case be right there—in black and white? As Bruce starts to investigate, what he discovers between the lines is more shocking than any of Nelson’s plot twists—and far more dangerous.

Ford County. The heart of the American deep South. A place of harsh beauty, of broken dreams and final wishes.

From legendary legal thriller author John Grisham comes a unique collection of stories connected by the life and crimes of Ford County.

From a hard-drinking, downtrodden divorce lawyer looking for pay-dirt, to a manipulative death row inmate with one last plea, Ford County features a vivid cast of attorneys, crooks, hustlers, and convicts. From their stories emerges a rich picture of lives lived and lost in Mississippi.

Completely gripping, frequently moving and always entertaining, Ford County brims with the same page-turning quality and heart-stopping drama of his previous bestsellers.

“Homecoming” takes us back to Ford County, the fictional setting of many of John Grisham’s unforgettable stories. Jake Brigance is back, but he’s not in the courtroom. He’s called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, a former lawyer in Clanton, who three years earlier became a local legend when he stole money from his clients, divorced his wife, filed for bankruptcy, and left his family in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again—until now. Now Mack is back, and he’s leaning on his old pals, Jake and Harry Rex, to help him return. His homecoming does not go as planned.

In “Strawberry Moon,” we meet Cody Wallace, a young death row inmate only three hours away from execution. His lawyers can’t save him, the courts slam the door, and the governor says no to a last-minute request for clemency. As the clock winds down, Cody has one final request.

The “Sparring Partners” are the Malloy brothers, Kirk and Rusty, two successful young lawyers who inherited a once prosperous firm when its founder, their father, was sent to prison. Kirk and Rusty loathe each other, and speak to each other only when necessary. As the firm disintegrates, the resulting fiasco falls into the lap of Diantha Bradshaw, the only person the partners trust. Can she save the Malloys, or does she take a stand for the first time in her career and try to save herself?

By turns suspenseful, hilarious, powerful, and moving, these are three of the greatest stories John Grisham has ever told.

When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the violent racists who raped his ten-year-old daughter, the people of the small town of Clanton, Mississippi see it as justice done, and call for his acquittal.

But when extremists outside Clanton - including the KKK - hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. A national media circus descends on Clanton.

As tensions mount, Hailey hires the inexperienced Jake Brigance to defend him. It's the kind of case that could make a young lawyer's career.

But it's also the kind of case that could get a young lawyer killed.

Seth Hubbard is a wealthy white man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his black maid, and defense attorney Jake Brigance into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County’s most notorious citizens, just three years earlier.

The second will raises many more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to his maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly? And what does it all have to do with a piece of land once known as Sycamore Row?

Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line.

In what may be the most personal and accomplished legal thriller of John Grisham’s storied career, we deepen our acquaintance with the iconic Southern town of Clanton and the vivid cast of characters that so many readers know and cherish. The result is a richly rewarding novel that is both timely and timeless, full of wit, drama, and—most of all—heart.

We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity is the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the flow of justice. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe?

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. It is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout United States history. And now he wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. When the case is assigned to Lacy, she immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous. Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.

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.

Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man 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.

He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?

On February 2, 2002, Stephen King, Pat Conroy, John Grisham and Peter Straub gathered at New York's Town Hall for a very special evening. These four bestselling authors stepped up to the microphone to raise money for one of the most recognizable voices in audiobooks, Frank Muller, an actor who sustained terrible injuries from a motorcycle accident. Muller, who has recorded hundreds of novels, including many by these authors, may never work again.

This once-in-a-lifetime event is captured here, and 100% of all profits will be donated to The Wavedancer Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports Frank Muller and other artists who fall prey to illness or injury and can no longer perform.

Grisham kicks off the evening with a heartfelt reading of an excerpt from his blockbuster bestseller The Summons. He's followed by Straub who captivates the audience with a hair-raising episode from Black House, the latest thriller he co-authored with Stephen King. King changes pace with a joyful reading of his classic short story The Revenge of Lardass Hogan. Finally, Conroy engages the audience in a hilarious chat on the art of writing.

A unique program that pays tribute to a true master craftsman, this audiobook is an unforgettable listening experience.

In the town of Ada, Oklahoma, Ron Williamson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. But on his way to the Big Leagues, Ron stumbled, his dreams broken by drinking, drugs, and women. Then, on a winter night in 1982, not far from Ron’s home, a young cocktail waitress named Debra Sue Carter was savagely murdered. The investigation led nowhere. Until, on the flimsiest evidence, it led to Ron Williamson. The washed-up small-town hero was charged, tried, and sentenced to death—in a trial littered with lying witnesses and tainted evidence that would shatter a man’s already broken life, and let a true killer go free.

Favorite authors discuss the day jobs they left behind. These authors tell good tales.

Contributory autobiographical essays by: John Grisham, Pat Conroy, Howard Bahr, Rick Bragg, Larry Brown, Connie May Fowler, Tom Franklin, Tim Gautreaux, William Gay, Winston Groom, Silas House, Suzanne Hudson, Joshilyn Jackson, Barb Johnson, Cassandra King, Janis Owens, Michelle Richmond, Clay Risen, George Singleton, Matthew Teague, Daniel Wallace, Brad Watson, Steve Yarbrough and Sonny Brewer.

Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons, Leon and Butch, take a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit the youngest Graney brother, Raymond, who’s been locked away on death row for eleven years . . . and it could well be their last visit. Going back to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill, Grisham brings the Graneys and their world to vivid and colorful life, making it abundantly clear why he is our most popular storyteller.

John Grisham says THE TUMOR is the most important book he has ever written. In this short book, he provides readers with a fictional account of how a real, new medical technology could revolutionize the future of medicine by curing with sound.

THE TUMOR follows the present day experience of the fictional patient Paul, an otherwise healthy 35-year-old father who is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Grisham takes readers through a detailed account of Paul’s treatment and his family’s experience that doesn’t end as we would hope. Grisham then explores an alternate future, where Paul is diagnosed with the same brain tumor at the same age, but in the year 2025, when a treatment called focused ultrasound is able to extend his life expectancy.

Focused ultrasound has the potential to treat not just brain tumors, but many other disorders, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, hypertension, and prostate, breast and pancreatic cancer.

For more information, you can visit The Focused Ultrasound Foundation’s website. Here you will find a video of Grisham on the TEDx stage with the Foundation’s chairman and a Parkinson’s patient who brings the audience to its feet sharing her incredible story of a focused ultrasound “miracle.”

Sebastian Rudd, rogue lawyer, defends people other lawyers won't go near. It's controversial and dangerous work, which is why Sebastian needs his bodyguard/assistant/sidekick: Partner. So if Sebastian is just about the most unpopular lawyer in town, why is Partner so loyal to him? How did they meet? And what's the real story of this man of few words who's as good with a gun as he is with the law? The surprising answers are all in PARTNERS , John Grisham's first exclusively digital short story.

A judge’s first murder trial.

A defense attorney in over his head.

A prosecutor out for blood and glory.

The accused, who is possibly innocent.

And the killer, who may have just committed the perfect crime.

NB: This is a A Short Story Prequel to The Whistler.

When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the hoodlums who have raped his ten-year-old child, the people of Clanton see it as a crime of blood and call for his acquittal. But when extremists outside Clanton hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. Jake Brigance has been hired to defend Hailey. It's the kind of case that can make or break a young lawyer. But in the maelstrom of Clanton, it is also the kind of case that could get a young lawyer killed.

When Mitch McDeere signed on with Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought that he and his beautiful wife, Abby, were on their way. The firm leased him a BMW, paid off his school loans, arranged a mortgage, and hired the McDeeres a decorator. Mitch should have remembered what his brother Ray—doing fifteen years in a Tennessee jail—already knew: You never get nothing for nothing. Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch’s firm and needs his help. Mitch is caught between a rock and a hard place, with no choice—if he wants to live. 

In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict—or reverse it. The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough to his interests. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.

THE CHAMBER 

In Chicago’s top law firm, a young lawyer stands on the brink of a brilliant career. Now twenty-six-year-old Adam Hall is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case: Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. Cayhall has run out of chances—except for one: a determined lawyer who just happens to be his grandson. While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather, and while the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client.

A perfect murder

A faceless witness

A lone courtroom champion knows the whole truth . . . and he’s only thirteen years old.

Meet Theodore Boone.

In the small city of Strattenburg, there are many lawyers, and though he’s only thirteen years old, Theo Boone thinks he’s one of them. Theo knows every judge, policeman, court clerk—and a lot about the law. He dreams of being a great trial lawyer, of a life in the courtroom.

But Theo finds himself in court much sooner than expected. Because he knows so much—maybe too much—he is suddenly dragged into the middle of a sensational murder trial. A cold-blooded killer is about to go free, and only Theo knows the truth.

The stakes are high, but Theo won’t stop until justice is served.

When we last saw Theo Boone, he ensured that justice was served by uncovering evidence that kept a guilty man off of the streets. Hot off this high-profile murder trial, thirteen-year-old Theo is still dispensing legal advice to friends and teachers. But just when it seems as if his life has calmed down and gone back to the status quo, a new legal mystery comes to town, and this time it's personal.

Big trouble is brewing for Theodore Boone. While all of Streenburg anxiously awaits the new trial of infamous murder suspect Pete Duffy, problems arise for their own kid lawyer. There's been a robbery and Theo is the accused. His reputation is on the line, and with the evidence building against him--and dangerous threats looming--Theo will do whatever it takes to prove his innocence--even if it means breaking a few rules.

Theodore Boone is back in action! As all of Strattenburg sits divided over a hot political and environmental issue, Theo finds himself right in the thick of it. The county commission is fighting hard to change the landscape of the town, and Theo is strongly opposed to the plans. But when he uncovers corruption beneath the surface, no one—not even Theo—is prepared for the risks—and potential harm—at stake. Torn between his conscience and the law, Theo will do whatever it takes to stand up for what is right.

Theo Boone thought the danger had passed, but he's about to face off against an old adversary: accused murderer and fugitive Pete Duffy. On a field trip to Washington, DC, Theo spots a familiar face on the Metro: Duffy, who jumped bail and was never seen again. Theo's quick thinking helps bring Duffy back to Strattenburg to stand trial.

But now that Duffy knows who he is, Theo is in greater danger than he's ever been in before. Even when everything is on the line, Theodore Boone will stop at nothing to make sure a killer is brought to justice.

Thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone knows every judge, police officer, and court clerk in Strattenburg. He has even helped bring a fugitive to justice. But even a future star lawyer like Theo has to deal with statewide standardized testing.

When an anonymous tip leads the school board to investigate a suspicious increase in scores at another local middle school, Theo finds himself thrust in the middle of a cheating scandal. With insider knowledge and his future on the line, Theo must follow his keen instincts to do what’s right in the newest case for clever kid lawyer Theo Boone.  

Woody Lambert is in trouble. He comes from a broken family, suffers bad grades at school and his older brother, Tony, is on probation for a drug offence. When Woody inadvertently gets caught up with Tony and one of his friends, Garth, cruising around Strattenburg in a beaten-up Mustang drinking beer, one thing leads to another and Garth holds up a convenience store with a fake gun.

Though he had no involvement in the crime other than being in Garth's car, Woody is arrested as an accomplice. He's going to need serious legal advice to avoid juvenile prison.

Enter Theodore Boone: after all, Theo has already decided that he will become the best courtroom lawyer in the state. It's just that, at the age of thirteen, Theo is years from being a qualified lawyer - and Woody needs help right now . . .

Popular Authors

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• Clavell, James

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The Complete John Grisham Book List

• Best Selling Authors
• Best Seller Reviews
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• Classic Literature
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• Shakespeare
• Short Stories
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• B.A., English, Duke University

John Grisham is a master of legal thrillers. His novels have captured the attention of millions of readers, from adults to teens. Over three decades, he has written nearly one book per year, and a number of those have been adapted into popular movies.

From his debut novel " A Time to Kill " to the 2020 release of "A Time for Mercy," Grisham's books are nothing short of captivating. Over the years, he's branched out from legal stories as well. His complete list of published books includes stories about sports as well as non-fiction. It's a compelling body of literature.

Lawyer Turned Best-Selling Author

Grisham was working as a criminal defense attorney in Southaven, Mississippi when he wrote his first novel, "A Time to Kill." It is based on an actual court case that dealt with racial issues in the South. It enjoyed modest success.

He entered politics, serving in the state legislature on the Democratic ticket. Meanwhile, he began writing his second novel. It was not Grisham's intent to leave law and politics to become a published author, but the runaway success of his second endeavor, "The Firm," changed his mind.

Grisham quickly became a prolific, best-selling author. In addition to novels, he has published short stories, nonfiction, and young adult books.

Grisham Captures Mainstream Readers From 1989–2000

Few new writers have exploded onto the literary scene like John Grisham. " The Firm " became the top-selling book of 1991 and was on The New York Times Best Seller List for nearly 50 weeks. In 1993, it was made into a movie, the first of many to come based on Grisham's novels .

From "The Pelican Brief" through "The Brethren," Grisham continued to produce legal thrillers at the rate of about one per year. He tapped into his experience as a lawyer to create characters who faced moral dilemmas and dangerous situations.

During the first decade of his work, multiple novels were eventually made into major big-screen films. These include "Pelican Brief" in 1993, "The Client" in 1994, "A Time to Kill" in 1996, "The Chamber" in 1996, and "The Rainmaker" in 1997.

• 1989 - "A Time to Kill"
• 1991 - "The Firm"
• 1992 - "The Pelican Brief"
• 1993 - "The Client"
• 1994 - "The Chamber"
• 1995 - "The Rainmaker"
• 1996 - "The Runaway Jury"
• 1997 - "The Partner"
• 1998 - "The Street Lawyer"
• 1999 - "The Testament"
• 2000 - "The Brethren"

Grisham Branches Out From 2001–2010

As the best-selling author entered his second decade of writing, he stepped back from his legal thrillers to examine other genres.

"A Painted House" is a small-town mystery. "Skipping Christmas" is about a family that decides to skip Christmas. He also examined his interest in sports with "Bleachers," which tells the story of a high school football star returning to his hometown after his coach dies. The theme continued in "Playing for Pizza," a story about an American playing football in Italy.

In 2010, Grisham introduced himself to a younger audience with "Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer," written for middle school readers.

Also in this decade, Grisham released "Ford County," his first collection of short stories, and "The Innocent Man," his first nonfiction book; the latter is about an innocent man on death row. Not to turn his back on his dedicated fans, he rounded out this period with several legal thrillers as well.

• 2001 - "A Painted House"
• 2001 - "Skipping Christmas"
• 2002 - "The Summons"
• 2003 - "The King of Torts"
• 2003 - "Bleachers"
• 2004 - "The Last Juror"
• 2005 - "The Broker"
• 2006 - "The Innocent Man"
• 2007 - " Playing for Pizza"
• 2008 - "The Appeal"
• 2009 - "The Associate"
• 2009 - "Ford County" (short stories)
• 2010 - "Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer"
• 2010 - "The Confession"

2011 to Present: Grisham Revisits Past Successes

Following the success of the first "Theodore Boone" book, Grisham followed up with six more books, turning it into a popular series.

In "Sycamore Row," a sequel to "A Time to Kill," Grisham brought back protagonist Jake Brigance and key supporting characters Lucien Wilbanks and Harry Rex Vonner. He continued his policy of writing one legal thriller every year and threw in a couple of short stories and a baseball novel called "Calico Joe" for good measure. 

Grisham's 30th book was released in 2017, titled "Camino Island." Another intriguing crime novel, the story centers around stolen F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts. Between a young, enthusiastic writer; the FBI; and a secret agency, the investigation tries to track down these handwritten documents on the black market.

Following this came "The Rooster Bar," which follows three law students who suspect that their school is not what it claims to be. "The Recoking" is the story of a war hero who commits a surprising crime. Finally, "A Time for Mercy" brings readers back to Mississippi for another sequel to the well-loved "A Time to Kill."

• 2011 - "Theodore Boone: The Abduction"
• 2011 - "The Litigators"
• 2012 - "Theodore Boone: The Accused"
• 2012 - "Calico Joe"
• 2012 - "The Racketeer"
• 2013 - "Theodore Boone: The Activist"
• 2013 - " Sycamore Row"
• 2014 - "Gray Mountain"
• 2015 - "Theodore Boone: The Fugitive"
• 2015 - "Rogue Lawyer"
• 2016 - "Partners" (a "Rogue Lawyer" short story)
• 2016 - "Theodore Boone: The Scandal"
• 2016 - "Witness to a Trial" (a digital short story)
• 2016 - "The Whistler"
• 2017 - "Camino Island"
• 2017 - "The Rooster Bar"
• 2018 - "The Reckoning"
• 2019 - "The Guardians"
• 2019 - "Theodore Boone: The Accomplice"
• 2020 - "Camino Winds"
• 2020 - "A Time for Mercy"
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Coming October 8, 2024

True stories of wrongful convictions from john grisham and jim mccloskey., framed astonishing true stories of wrongful convictions.

In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man , #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system. A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place, and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and the corrupt court system that can make them so hard to reverse. Told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of overcoming adversity when the battle already seems lost, and the deck is stacked against you.

Available October 8, 2024

New for Summer 2024

Don't miss the return trip to camino island, camino ghosts.

John Grisham takes you back to Camino Island where bookseller Bruce Cable and novelist Mercer Mann always manage to find trouble in paradise. In this new thriller on Camino Island, popular bookseller Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann an irresistible tale that might be her next novel. A giant resort developer is using its political muscle and deep pockets to claim ownership of a deserted island between Florida and Georgia. Only the last living inhabitant of the island, Lovely Jackson, stands in its way. What the developer doesn’t know is that the island has a remarkable history, and locals believe it is cursed…and the past is never the past…

Available May 28, 2024

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John Grisham

A lawyer by profession and an author by fame, John Grisham is the brilliant American writer of numerous novels best known for his legal thrillers. He was born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas to parents who were never formally educated but encouraged their son to pursue an education and prepare himself for college. Grisham settled with his parents in Southaven where he spent his younger years.

A young Grisham could not have imagined of becoming a writer since he had not developed any interest in writing until after starting a professional career in law. John drifted through three different colleges before finally obtaining a degree. He attended the Mississippi State University in 1971 and received a BS degree in accounting and in 1981 graduated from the University Of Mississippi School Of Law to become a tax lawyer. However, he changed his mind and shifted interest in general civil litigation. Earning a Juris Doctor degree, John specialized in criminal law. He established a small legal practice of his own upon returning to Southaven. Grisham served Mississippi House of Representatives after being elected in 1983. He was later promoted to the position of Vice Chairman Apportionment and Elections Committee.

A case Grisham has been closely observing inspired him to start writing his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989). Rejected by 28 publishers, the book finally found an unknown publisher who agreed to publish a limited number of copies. Without the benefit of marketing by an established publisher, John was forced to directly request booksellers to stock his book. Despite a sale of only 5000 copies, Grisham quickly began work on a second novel, The Firm. He closed his office in Southaven, deciding not to seek a re-election in the legislature. John moved to Oxford, Mississippi with his family to give them more time and concentrate on his writing. The Firm (1991) secured the position of the bestselling novel of 1991 and maintained its place on The New York Times’ bestsellers list for 47 weeks.

Grisham continued to writer legal thrillers and produced brilliantly written works such as The Client (1993), The Chamber (1994), The Runaway Jury (1996), The Partner (1997), The Street Lawyer (1998), The Testament (1999), The Summons (2002), The Last Juror (2004), The Broker (2005), The Appeal (2008), The Associate (2009), The Confession (2010) and The Litigators (2011). 2001 onwards, Grisham broadened his scope of writing from law to other subjects, particularly his lifelong passion of baseball. A Painted House (2001) was his first non-legal book followed by Skipping Christmas (2001), Bleachers (2003) and Playing for Pizza (2007).

John Grisham was awarded the the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award by the Tulsa Library Trust in 2005. A John Grisham Room is maintained in The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division where materials generated during the author’s tenure as Mississippi State Representative are archived. Grisham is a zealous supporter to new writers endowing scholarships and writers’ residencies in the University of Mississippi’s English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program. He is also the founder of, Oxford American, a dedicated magazine for literary writing.

Today, John Grisham continues to write bestselling novels. He lives with his wife and two children in homes he has in Oxford, Mississippi and Charlottesville, Virginia.

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John grisham, bestselling author, i had a story. it was a courtroom drama. i was doing a lot of courtroom work. i was a very young lawyer. i was sort of consumed with this story. and one night i just said, ‘okay. i’m going to try to capture it, see what i can do with words.’ and that’s what happened..

John Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His father, a cotton farmer and itinerant construction worker, moved the family frequently, from town to town throughout the Deep South, settling in Southaven, Mississippi in 1967. Although his parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged him to read and insisted that he prepare himself for college.

By his own account, John Grisham had no interest in writing until after he embarked on his professional career. For his first two years in college, he drifted. He attended three different colleges before earning a degree. After abandoning a youthful dream of a professional baseball career, he settled down to study accounting and prepare for a career as a tax lawyer. While in law school, his interest shifted from tax law to criminal law and litigation. After graduating from the University of Mississippi law school, he returned to Southaven and established a small private legal practice. He was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1983. By his second term he held the vice chairmanship of the Apportionment and Elections Committee, as well as memberships on the Insurance, Judiciary “A” and Military Affairs Committee.

In Mississippi, attorneys in private practice are sometimes called upon to appear as public defenders for indigent clients. In this way, Grisham received invaluable experience of the criminal justice system. Inspired by a case he observed in a Mississippi courthouse, Grisham decided to write a novel. For years, he arrived at his office at five o’clock in the morning, six days a week, to work on his first book, A Time To Kill. His manuscript was rejected by 28 publishers before he found an unknown publisher who was willing to print a short run. Without the benefit of a major publisher’s marketing apparatus, the novice author went directly to booksellers, encouraging them to stock his book.

Although A Time to Kill  only sold a disappointing 5,000 copies, Grisham had already begun work on a second novel,  The Firm . At the same time, bored with the routine of the state capital and eager to spend more time with his family, he decided not to seek re-election to the state legislature. He closed his office in Southaven and moved his family to Oxford, Mississippi, hoping to concentrate on his writing.

At age 36, his career as a novelist bloomed when movie rights to The Firm were sold for a hefty price, even before the book had found a publisher. The Firm sold more than seven million copies and spent 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. With the success of The Firm , John Grisham finally gave up his law practice to write full-time. He has returned to the practice of law on only one occasion since, in 1996, to win a settlement for the family of a railroad worker killed on the job. Meanwhile, he has continued to write enormously successful legal thrillers at the rate of nearly one a year. As of this writing, seven of his books — The Chamber , The Rainmaker , The Street Lawyer , The Testament , The Brethren , The Summons and The Broker — were the bestselling novels of their respective years.

Beginning in 2001, Grisham has occasionally departed from the format of the legal thriller to write works of fiction on other subjects, particularly baseball and life in the rural South. The first of these was A Painted House , followed by Skipping Christmas , Bleachers and Playing for Pizza . His 2009 book of short stories, Ford County , returned to the setting of his first novel. Nine of Grisham’s tales have been adapted for film and television, including The Firm , The Pelican Brief , The Client , The Rainmaker , along with his original screenplay The Gingerbread Man . The film version of Skipping Christmas was re-titled Christmas with the Kranks .

Today, John Grisham and his wife, Renee Jones, keep homes in Oxford, Mississippi and near Charlottesville, Virginia. Apart from his writing, Grisham is a generous supporter of Little League teams in Oxford and Charlottesville and has endowed a writing scholarship at the University of Mississippi.

Grisham’s nonfiction book,  The Innocent Man (2006), recounted the real-life case of Ron Williamson, a former professional baseball player sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. Williamson was eventually released; his case exposed glaring inadequacies in the criminal justice system. John Grisham is also a board member of the Innocence Project, an organization that promotes the use of DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongly convicted. He has spoken and written publicly against America’s high rates of incarceration and is an outspoken opponent of capital punishment.

Despite these interests and activities, Grisham has not stopped producing bestselling novels, such as The Associate and The Confession , or his 2011 comic novel,  The Litigators . In 2010, he initiated a continuing series of novels for younger readers with Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer . In addition to the baseball-themed 2012 novel,  Calico Joe , he has continued to craft highly successful thrillers, including The Racketeer , Sycamore Row , Gray Mountain , Rogue Lawyer and The Whistler.  Camino Island , published in 2017, introduced a new type of hero in Grisham’s fiction. Bookseller Bruce Cable, a dealer in rare books, is drawn into a web of intrigue following the theft of treasured manuscripts from Princeton University.

His 2018 novel The Reckoning — a combination of courtroom drama and Gothic family saga — immediately landed in the number one position on The New York Times bestseller lists for both hardcover fiction and in the combined print and e-book category.  Grisham published his 40th novel, The Guardians in October 2019, introducing a new protagonist: Cullen Post, an attorney who is also an Episcopal priest, seeking justice for the wrongly convicted. The Guardians, too, debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list.

Grisham returned to the imaginary setting of Camino Island in the 2020 novel Camino Winds , in which his bookseller hero Bruce Cable is called upon to solve the murder of a crime novelist, a crime committed under cover of a tropical storm.  Not surprisingly, the book debuted in first place on T he New York Times bestseller list.

Later that year, Grisham published A Time For Mercy, in which he revives the hero of his first novel, small-town lawyer Jake Brigance, who is called to defend a minor accused of killing a sheriff’s deputy. In October 2023, John Grisham is set to captivate readers with his highly anticipated novel, The Exchange , a sequel to the book that catapulted him to literary stardom over 30 years ago, The Firm . Grisham’s storytelling prowess shines in this new installment, where he revisits the character Mitch McDeere, now wealthy and living as an international lawyer in New York City.

“I find myself taking long walks on my farm with my wife, Renee, wondering what in the world happened,” says Grisham.

Today he one of the world’s bestselling authors, but John Grisham showed no early interest in writing. One day in 1984, three years after Grisham began practicing law in Southaven, Mississippi, he dropped by the courthouse to observe a trial. “This ten-year-old girl was testifying against a man who had raped her and left her for dead,” he says. “I never felt such emotion and human drama in my life. I became obsessed wondering what it would be like if the girl’s father killed that rapist and was put on trial. I had to write it down.”

Grisham has hardly stopped writing since then. Grisham’s first novel, A Time To Kill, was published in 1989 and sold a mere 5,000 copies. But his second, The Firm , the story of a law school grad recruited by a firm with mob connections, spent a spectacular 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Once Grisham started writing, he never stopped. Every year brings a new bestseller from the master of the legal thriller. Many of his works, including The Firm , The Pelican Brief , The Client and The Rainmaker have been made into successful motion pictures.  Read all over the world, his books have sold more that 300 million copies.

When did you decide to start writing?

The writing has come fairly late in life. I never dreamed of being a writer when I was a kid, even a student, even in college. In fact, I’d been practicing law for about three or four years in the early ’80s, when I decided to make a stab at writing a story that I’d been thinking about. And the story eventually became A Time to Kill.

What inspired you to begin with?

John Grisham: When I started all this, my motives were pure. I was not driven by greed or money. I had a story. It was a courtroom drama. I was doing a lot of courtroom work; I was a very young lawyer. But I was handling a lot of court-appointed criminal cases, in trial a lot. And I knew the criminal system, and I knew a lot about it. So I came up with a story about a murder trial, and some of it was based on personal experience, most of it was not. And I kept telling myself, I would like to be the lawyer who defended a father who murdered the two guys who raped his daughter. I think that would be a fascinating case. One thing led to another, and I was sort of consumed with this story. And one night I just said, “Okay. I’m going to try to capture it, see what I can do with words.” And that’s what happened.

It took three years to write it, and I was very disciplined about doing it. It was very much a hobby. By the time I finished it, I had developed a routine of writing every day. When I finished it, I went to the next book, which was The Firm. Once that was written, everything started changing. I wouldn’t use the word “accident,” but it certainly wasn’t planned. I never dreamed of it.

You found the time to write, so you must have been pretty motivated.

John Grisham: The bulk of the first two books, A Time to Kill and The Firm, those books were written over a five-year period, back-to-back, from about 1984 to about 1989. The bulk was written at five o’clock in the morning, from five ’til seven in the morning. I’d get up and go to the office that early. And again, it wasn’t any fun, but it was a habit. It got to be part of the daily routine. And I remember several times being in court at nine o’clock in the morning, really tired, because writing takes a lot out of you. It’s draining. And I would do it for an hour or two in the morning, and get ready for court, and go to court. Be standing, waiting for the judge, and be really tired.

Was there a moment in your career that really stands out as a turning point?

John Grisham: There have been some wonderful phone calls from New York. The biggest phone call yet was the first time, a truly magical moment. After a year of being turned down, my agent called one day in April of ’88 and said, “We have a publisher for A Time to Kill. It’s going to be a book.” At that point it had been turned down by 30-something publishers. Everybody had said no to it. He found a very small press in New York, and they wanted to buy it. That was a huge moment.

Another time, he called and said, “We’ve sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount.” It was totally unexpected, because at that time there was no book deal, it was just in manuscript form. Those are big moments. I don’t know if you sort of get jaded, or callous to success, but it’s still terribly exciting. It’s still hard to believe.

The Firm was published four years ago, so it’s been awfully quick. The Firm was not the first book, but it was the first book anybody read. My career is still in its infancy and it still feels brand new. Something happens every day that makes me stop and try to remember where I am and what’s happening.

Tell us about your family and your friends.

John Grisham: It’s easy to remember friends.

When A Time to Kill was published, it was an unknown author, unknown book, unknown publisher. There was no money for promotion, so I tried to sell the book myself. And I went to a lot of book stores in the Memphis, mid-South area, and a lot of them had no time, you know? They didn’t want a new author, especially one with a publisher they’d never heard of. But there were a handful who opened their doors and said, “Sure, come in. We’ll try to sell some books, and we’ll have a party, and we’ll invite all of our customers.”

And, you know, it’s hard to forget people like that. And it’s fun now. I go back every time. I’ve gone back with every book. There are five stores. I call them — they’re my home stores. These are friends of mine, and I can’t imagine publishing a book and not going back to their stores. I mean, now the book signings last for, you know, ten or 12 hours, but you know, it’s still fun. It’s tiring, but it’s only once a year. I don’t do it every day. And there are worse things in life than signing lots of copies of your own books. I’m still gratified that people show up and wait in line to get a book signed.

And, you know…

The pressure of really sudden notoriety and success, it’s good and bad. I mean, it’s something you think you’d like to have, and it’s something that’s nice. There are a lot of rewards. The good far outweighs the bad. But you catch yourself trying to remember what’s important to you, your friends and families and what you enjoyed doing years before. We have two small children, and we had a life before all this happened. And even then — we call it BF, before The Firm, that’s how we judge time — everything we did revolved around the kids, and it’s still that way. We’ve sort of regrouped as a family, and we kind of stick to ourselves, with a few friends. It makes you appreciate the friends you had, because now everybody wants to be friends. It makes you deeply appreciative of the people who are truly friends. We’ve stayed away from the success. We live in Mississippi, and in Virginia. We live in both places, but it’s country living. We try to keep it simple, and we stay away from Hollywood, New York and all those places where the attention really is.

Did you have any conception of the kind of success that you’ve come to?

John Grisham: It’s been one book at a time. A Time to Kill was published, but nobody bought it. About the time it was published, I was finished with The Firm. The Firm slowly became a bestseller when it was published. While it was getting this attention, I was writing the next book, which was The Pelican Brief.

Each book has built on the other. Then the movies came along and added a much heavier layer of fame and notoriety, and pressure. It’s just snowballed, but there’s no way I could have predicted that, because I can’t predict what’s going to happen next year with the movies and the books. I don’t have a feel for everything that’s coming.

My parents did not have the benefit of college. They didn’t get to go to college. They were from a very rural part of the Deep South, where most of my relatives were from. College to them was always a dream. For us, it was always a requirement. We knew — because they told us — we’d go to college. And they worked very hard to pay for it, and to provide it for all of five kids. And I was the first member of my family to finish college, and to get a graduate degree in law, and to start practicing law. And for the family, that was a source of immense pride. To me, that’s the American Dream, for one generation to keep building the dream for later generations.

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John Grisham Is Still Battling His Southern Demons

By David Marchese June 21, 2022

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“It was such a hard-right-wing, racist society that I grew up in. I’ve come a long way.”

By David Marchese

There are very few constants in life — and it sure feels as if the number is shrinking — but one thing readers of popular fiction can count on is that every year will bring a new John Grisham book, or two. With his latest, “Sparring Partners,” the prolific and megaselling novelist is offering his humble version of a changeup. The book, his 47th, is the 67-year-old’s first collection of novellas. It includes three separate stories, one of which features his old standby Southern-lawyer character Jake Brigance. But while his professional life has been marked by a certain steadfastness, his personal and political evolution wasn’t quite so smooth. “I’ve come a long way,” says Grisham, who was a lawyer and a politician before turning to writing. “Once I became a lawyer, most of my clients were poor people, working people, minority people who had no money. We were on one side of the street. On the other side of the street were the people with money. Real quick I realized where I stood in life and where I was going to be in life.”

With the exception of “Strawberry Moon,” the material in the new book feels to me like the kind of plots and subject matter that you normally render at full length. And, to be crass, I’ve also heard that novellas don’t sell as well as novels. So why opt for the form? Over the years, these stories keep lying around, and I realized that the birthdays are piling up and the stories are not being written. So, I said, OK, I’m going to pick out my three favorites and finish them. I’m tired of thinking about them. I emailed Stephen King and said, “You’ve done several collections of novellas; how did it work?” He said he also had a lot of stories, you’re not going to be able to write them all as novels, some don’t work as short stories, so you do something in the middle. That’s how it all came to pass. I can play around with a baseball book or a football book or short stories or a kids’ book in my spare time, but I know my readers want the legal thriller every fall.

When you know you’ve got to deliver a big new legal thriller every fall — and in between you’re often writing those other books — are you ever able to abandon an idea that isn’t working? Or do you just have to find a way to make it work? I’ve never had the situation where I wrote myself into a corner I couldn’t get out of. At the same time, with every book I reach a point late in the game where I have doubts about the story and get nervous, even frightened, about Who’s going to believe this stuff? I’m going through it right now with “The Boys From Biloxi.” My goal each year with each legal thriller is to write about 100,000 words. That’s going to produce a novel, when published, that’s about 350 pages. To me, that’s ideal. You don’t need a big thick book for a thriller. “The Boys From Biloxi” — I’m at 120,000 right now and sweating, because I have a lot left to cover to get to the end. So, yeah, those are issues that come up. But I cannot squeeze a novel out of every idea. A perfect example is the opioid crisis. It’s right down my alley because it’s tons of litigation, corporate bad behavior, all kinds of bad guys. I’ve been itching to write that book, but I haven’t been able to get my head around a story that I could do in 100,000 words. It’s just so big. Guantánamo’s another one. I’ve been collecting research for 20 years. We’ve kept prisoners down there for 15 years without charging them with any crime. There’s a lot of lawyers who spend time down there trying to correct a terrible situation. It’s also right down my alley because it’s the legal system, but again, I can’t get my head around that story.

This is a little left-field, but I was fascinated by the fact that as a young man, you held office in the Mississippi Legislature. Could the 28-year-old version of you be elected in Mississippi today? At that time I was — I’m not going to say conservative. I was a moderate Democrat. Today that person doesn’t exist in the South. If I ran today, I would hope that I would run as a progressive Democrat — and I would not be elected. I have friends who hold public office in Mississippi who had to switch from Democrat to Republican to keep their jobs. If you have the D by your name, you’re not going to be elected. It has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Also, it ought to be against the law in any state for a 28-year-old to be elected to the state legislature. I see these guys — the guy from North Carolina?

Madison Cawthorn. Yeah. Just got beat. It shows you what happens when a 26-year-old who’s off leash gets elected. He needed to be called home. You’ve got to be at least 30 years old and have some maturity before you get that job. I didn’t do any damage in my eight years, but there’s not much of a record to brag about. I didn’t do a lot of good.

What was the most morally difficult decision you had to make as a politician or a practicing lawyer? I’ll tell you a story. A 15-year-old girl in my church got pregnant. Her parents were devastated. Strict Southern Baptist. Small town. They were terrified people were going to find out. They came to me before they went to the minister because they were talking about adoption, the laws. Abortion terrified them. The father was 15 years old, too, so getting married was out of the question. I remember thinking, These people are leaning on me way too much. I was a 27-year-old kid, one year out of law school. They think I’m wise. I’m not ready for this. The parents weren’t a whole lot older than I was — in their early 40s, I guess. They reached a point where they trusted me, and I’m thinking, I don’t want to be in this room. I finally said: “Let’s get the minister involved. You people need help big time, and I’m not giving it to you.” My point is, I realized that on the abortion issue, that was a decision to be made by that family — that girl and the parents and nobody else. Nobody else should be in the room.

Including the government? No government, no lawmaker, no judge. That’s when I began to realize what’s at stake with abortion. I’m opposed to abortion. I didn’t want her to get an abortion, because the baby was going to be healthy — and the baby did make a great gift for someone else. She was able to leave and go live with an aunt in another town, have the baby well cared for, adopt it out. She came back, the family rallied, the church rallied. Made the best of a bad situation, and somebody got a beautiful baby. But there were times when I was thinking the quickest solution would be an abortion. I didn’t say that, but it was a quandary I was in because I was getting way too much input. That had a big impact on me as a lawyer, because you realize the influence you have. The law degree is a powerful tool. You can do a lot of good things. That’s the fun part of being a lawyer, when you help people. I was not a very good lawyer.

Why not? You’ve got to be kind of tough on the business end, and I could never say no to people who were in trouble, especially people I knew in the community. When you take everything that walks in the door, you’re going to go broke. That was my downfall. At the same time, I had strong ambitions about being a skilled courtroom lawyer. That was my goal, inspired by some great old-fashioned country trial lawyers in Mississippi I knew. I was never afraid of going to court. Most lawyers are. A lot of them are afraid to try a case in front of a jury, but I thrived on that. I dreamed of being so good that people with really good cases — injury cases or wrongful-death cases or medical-malpractice cases — would come to me and I would have the chance to make some money, which I never did.

You said that you’re opposed to abortion. For religious reasons? I’ve just never been able to stomach the idea of abortion on demand or women having multiple abortions just because they get pregnant. And I’ve always thought that late-term abortion, partial-birth abortions were something that we should not tolerate because the fetus is viable. I’ve always been turned off by that notion of abortion. I guess it’s probably religious grounds. But at the same time you don’t know what you’re going to do until you’re in that situation. That’s when it becomes a matter of choice.

What political positions did you hold when you were 28 that you don’t hold now? Death penalty, for sure.

You used to believe in it? Big time. I’m in favor of tougher gun control. I am much more suspicious of the police and prosecutors because I’ve seen so many wrongful convictions. Also, race relations: I grew up in the Jim Crow South. A very segregated, racist society was almost in my DNA. It’s a long struggle to overcome that and to look back at the way I was raised and not be resentful toward my parents and other people who helped raise me for their extreme racism. It was such a hard right-wing, racist society that I grew up in. The Baptist Church was that way too back then. I’ve come a long way. I have a lot of friends and even kinfolk who never tried to move beyond the racism. But I try every day. It’s been an ongoing, gradual transformation. My wife was another factor, because she grew up in North Carolina, and it was not as hard-core racist as Mississippi. She and her parents were much more tolerant. So she had a big influence on me. You know, we’re all tribalists. We all want to be around our people or believe in our people, and it’s often too hard to get beyond that. It’s still a struggle for me.

Has your sense of the South as a literary setting changed? To my mind, the open resurgence of racist violence makes a book like “A Time to Kill” read even more disturbingly today than it did when I first read it in the mid-90s. It’s changed in many ways. That story is based on an actual assault that happened in the 1970s in a small town not too far from where I lived and went to law school. When I wrote that story, I was 30 years old and had never written before. I can’t tell you there was a lot of careful forethought with “A Time to Kill.” I didn’t think about the portrayal of Southern Blacks and Southern whites in a small town. That was just my world. At the same period of time, in 1988, I was back from my second term at the Legislature. We had a progressive young governor, a progressive young House speaker. We thought finally Mississippi could change things. We were on the cusp of this progressive revolution. We believed it. Thirty-four years later, it’s astonishing how far backward the state has gone. The politics there are very displeasing to me.

Let me shift gears: This could be apocryphal, but I heard that you and Michael Crichton used to have some one-upmanship over money. Each of you wanted to be paid a dollar more than the other guy. Is that true? In the 1990s, for about five years in a row, my agent would take my latest manuscript — “Pelican Brief,” “The Client,” “The Chamber,” “The Rainmaker” — to Hollywood, get the studios in a room and have an auction. And when they paid, they paid millions . I don’t know what was actually said because I wasn’t there, but it was like, “Crichton got this amount; we want more.” It was back and forth. We were gaming the system big time. It was working beautifully — until it stopped. I sold the film rights to “The Runaway Jury” in 1996 to New Regency for a record amount. I can’t get a fraction of that today. You can say, Well, we choked the golden goose, but all those films made money. Then Hollywood changed. I don’t understand that world. Nobody understands that world. There’s no rules. We learned years ago, do not believe a word until they start filming. “Runaway Jury” was actually the last big contract I got. I helped write the script, which was a huge mistake. Joel Schumacher was the director. We had Sean Connery, Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton ready to start filming. It was a done deal, and Joel Schumacher jumped off the bus. The whole cast walked away. It took years to make that movie.

Why was it a mistake to work on the script? I’m not a screenwriter. It’s not something I enjoy doing. One of the most frustrating parts is the teamwork. You get notes from people who don’t have a clue, who do not understand the basics of storytelling. You wonder if they even make movies. The worst note I got — it’s a great story. In 1993, ’94, somewhere in there, “The Firm,” “The Pelican Brief” and “The Client” came out in the span of about 12 months. All three books were at the top of the list, along with “A Time to Kill,” which had been rediscovered. Things were hopping. I was finishing “The Chamber,” and this was a stupid thing we did: A big-time Hollywood guy said, “OK, we want to buy your next book right now sight unseen.” I sent the manuscript, what I had, and this studio honcho read the first draft of an incomplete manuscript and wasn’t too crazy about it. Which really pissed me off. Suddenly this guy’s a literary critic? He sent a faxed note, I believe, to my agent at the time and said, “We can’t buy this book for a movie unless Grisham will promise three love scenes and a happy ending.” [Laughs.] If I ever write a Hollywood tell-all, that’s the title of my book: “Three Love Scenes and a Happy Ending.”

Do you think about your critical legacy as a writer? When you get started in the business and you have some success, like I did with “The Firm,” you want to be taken seriously as a writer, but you have to be honest with yourself. You can’t sell books and be loved by critics. It’s not going to happen. There are very few literary authors who sell a lot of books. The best seller for a literary novel is 25,000 copies. Fifty max. If you do sell a lot of books, you’re dismissed by critics. So I decided a long time ago, I’ll take the money and run. You talk about legacy? I don’t care. I’m going to be dead and gone.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the Talk columnist.

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What is certain in life death, taxes — and a new book by john grisham.

Andrew Limbong

John Grisham at his office in Charlottesville, Va. His new book is a sequel to The Firm , the book that turned him into a star. Donald Johnson/The New York Times/Doubleday hide caption

John Grisham at his office in Charlottesville, Va. His new book is a sequel to The Firm , the book that turned him into a star.

Just going by numbers alone, it's undeniable that John Grisham is a statesman of American letters. Since the beginning of his career, his goal has been focused on output.

"One smart decision I made way back then was to hurry up and write," he said in an interview with NPR. He's published 49 books, and has sold more than 400 million copies, according to his publicist. He's been in the game for more than three decades now.

And in this tenured position in the world of books, he's adjacent to the existential crises facing books today. He's part of a big lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI for copyright infringement (he said he's not allowed to comment on it). People often ask him about his stance on books being pulled from schools and library shelves (he said it is "ridiculous" but doesn't keep a close eye on the news).

Mostly, though, he'd rather be writing.

He's now out with his latest, The Exchange . It's a sequel to 1991's The Firm , which was the book that turned Grisham into a writing star. When I asked him why, after all this time, is he revisiting The Firm, he simply said: "Well, we're always trying to angle a way to sell more books."

The Firm was first published when Grisham was juggling working as a lawyer and being a member of the state legislature in Mississippi. He'd start his days early and write in the mornings. His first book, A Time To Kill , didn't do so well — at first, at least. Not until after he wrote his follow up, The Firm , which was an immediate success. "It was overnight," he said. "Terribly exciting."

The book is about a young hotshot lawyer named Mitch McDeere. He isn't a criminal defense attorney, or a white collar prosecutor, or anything exciting like that. He's a tax lawyer. And he gets recruited into a secret law firm in Memphis that, surprise, surprise, is doing shady business with shady people, and Mitch finds himself caught between the mob and the FBI.

John Grisham and his wife Renee in 2004. "We kept our feet on the ground and we didn't change," said Grisham of finding fame. Michael Springer/Getty Images hide caption

John Grisham and his wife Renee in 2004. "We kept our feet on the ground and we didn't change," said Grisham of finding fame.

The immediate bestseller was pulpy and breezy enough that it was prime material for a 1993 movie adaptation starring Tom Cruise. The movie was a hit, too, becoming the highest grossing R rated film that year . Suddenly, Grisham's work was a hot commodity in Hollywood: The Pelican Brief got turned into a movie. As did The Client . Then his first book, A Time To Kill .

"In the early 90s, things were really chaotic, but also a whole lot of fun. We were having a ball," he said of himself and his wife, Renee Grisham. But they also had their eyes towards the future — and on the cyclical nature of fame.

"We always said to each other, look, everything goes in cycles and nobody stays on top forever," he said. "Nothing is going to last forever. And so one of these days, this incredible journey is going to be over."

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

Even as the machinations of Hollywood taste changed, and options for his books kept going nowhere, Grisham kept hurrying up and writing. The Exchange takes place 15 years after The Firm . Mitch and his wife Abby live in New York City with their two children. It's a bigger globe trotting book — the main legal concern is over a fictional bridge in Libya that Col. Muammar Gaddafi wants built.

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Not my job: legal thriller author john grisham gets quizzed on (men's) briefs.

But before the main thrust of the narrative, there's a prelude of sorts that involves Mitch going back to Memphis to do some pro bono work involving a man on death row. Before he can even get started on the case, the man dies — supposedly by suicide. We never really come back to this storyline in the book but it serves multiple functions: It lets the reader revisit some of the story beats of the first book, but it also touches on the core of what drives so much of Grisham's work — injustice.

In 2006, Grisham wrote his first non-fiction book called The Innocent Man , about a wrongfully convicted man on death row. Since then, he's taken up the cause of wrongful convictions. He's on the boards The Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, which helps get wrongfully convicted people out of prison. He is working on another book now, unsurprisingly. But it's a non-fiction collection about people spending decades in prison for someone else's crimes. "It happens all the time," he said.

Since the beginning of his career until now, not much has changed about his lifestyle, his writing process, or his demeanor. But what has shifted has been his faith in the jury system.

"We're supposed to trust the police and the prosecutors. We believe in those people, the judges. That's the system," he said. "And we want to believe that it always works and it doesn't.

Meghan Collins Sullivan edited the radio and digital versions of this story.

John Grisham

• Born February 8 , 1955 · Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA
• Birth name John Grisham Jr.
• Height 6′ 1″ (1.85 m)
• A graduate of Mississippi State University and Ole Miss Law School, John Grisham obtained his law degree in 1981 and practiced law for about 10 years, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. He was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1983 and served until 1990. He gave up his law practice to write full-time. He began writing in 1984, and three years later finished his first novel, "A Time To Kill", published by Wynwood Press in June 1988. He is the best-selling author of "A Time to Kill", "The Firm", "The Pelican Brief" and "The Client". He lives with his wife and their two children on a farm in Oxford, Mississippi. - IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous
• His mother was a housewife. He has four siblings. Grisham spent part of his childhood and youth in Southaven, Mississippi. He attended high school there. One of his early career aspirations was that he wanted to be a baseball player. But then he began studying law at Mississippi State University. Grisham was already active as a writer during his student days. He completed his studies in 1981. In the same year he married Renee Jones. He opened a law firm specializing in criminal court cases. In 1983 and 1987 he was a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives for the Democratic Party. A rape trial in 1984 was the initial spark for Grisham's literary work. This is how his crime novel "A Time to Kill" (in German: "The Jury") was written in 1989, in which he included his experiences and impressions from the rape trial. John Grisham offered the work to numerous publishers, but he received rejections everywhere. Then it was accepted by an unknown publishing house and published with a circulation of only 5,000 copies. From 1990 he lived as a professional writer after giving up his legal and political activities. The breakthrough came with his second work, the 1991 title "The firm", published in German with the title "Die Firm". The book became an international bestseller. At the same time, "The Jury" was released again. In 1993, "The firm" was made into a film by Sydney Pollack, with the participation of film stars such as Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise. Starting in 1992, John Grisham produced a book every year. The author was also internationally successful with works such as "The Pelican Brief" (1992, German: "The File"), "The Client" (1993, German: "Der Klient"), "The Rainmaker" (1995 , German: "The Rainmaker"), "The Street Lawyer" (1998, German: "Betrayal") and "The Brethren" (2000. German: "The Brotherhood"). This was followed by the novels "A Painted House" (2001) and "The Summons" (2002, German for "The Judge"). His complete work also includes the screenplay "The Gingerbread Man". Grisham became known for the fact that his criminal stories took place in the legal and judicial environment. The title "The Pelican Brief" was made into a film starring Julia Roberts. Although his novels follow a simple pattern, John Grisham became one of the most successful writers of the 1990s. Grisham has sold over 65 million books translated into 32 languages. In 2006 he published the title "The Innocent Man". "The Associate" and "The Confession" followed in 2009 and 2010. John Grisham lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and Oxford, Mississippi. He has a son. The author is a strict Baptist and supports charitable projects. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
• Spouse Renée Jones (May 8, 1981 - present) (2 children)
• Writes novels about main characters that are from the Southeastern United States
• Writes novels that are usually based around the justice system
• His first novel 'A Time To Kill' took three years to complete and was rejected by 28 publishers.
• Has casting approval rights for movies based on his novels.
• Has sold 60,742,288 copies of his books, making him the best-selling author of the 1990s.
• Donated $5 million after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and Mississippi.
• Is totally opposed to the concept of cameras in courtrooms.
• I grew up in a very small, close-knit, Southern Baptist family, where everything was off-limits. So I couldn't wait to get to college and have some fun. And I did for the first two years. And I regret a lot of it, because my grades were in terrible shape. I never got in serious trouble, except for my grades.
• Runaway Jury (2003) - $8,000,000
• The Chamber (1996) - $3,750,000
• A Time to Kill (1996) - $6,000,000
• The Firm (1993) - $100,000

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John Grisham (1955–)

John Grisham is an internationally known bestselling author of legal thrillers and of one fictionalized account of his childhood in Arkansas, A Painted House . Many of his books have been made into popular Hollywood movies.

John Grisham was born in Jonesboro (Craighead County) on February 8, 1955, to John Grisham and Wanda Skidmore Grisham. At the time, his parents were helping the extended family on the cotton farm near Black Oak (Craighead County) . When Grisham was four years old, the family began following his father’s construction jobs, including spending three years in Parkin (Cross County) , before eventually settling in Southaven, Mississippi, though he and his four siblings came to the Black Oak farm to spend the summers with their grandparents. While much of his life has been spent outside of Arkansas, he has strong ties to northeast Arkansas. Grisham’s grandfather owned Skidmore Piano Store in Blytheville (Mississippi County) , and many of his relatives live in northeast Arkansas today.

Grisham loved playing baseball and followed the St. Louis Cardinals, often listening to the games on the radio with the family when the farm chores were done. He attended Northwest Junior College in Senatobia, Mississippi, and Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, to play college baseball. At Mississippi State University, he became a serious student, graduating with a BS in accounting in 1977. Grisham enrolled in law school at the University of Mississippi to become a tax lawyer, but his interest shifted to criminal law. Shortly after graduation from law school, Grisham married Renee Jones on May 8, 1981. They have two children, Ty and Shea, and live in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Oxford, Mississippi.

Grisham was admitted to the state bar in Mississippi in 1981 and practiced in Southaven until 1990. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from January 1984 until September 1990.

While serving in the Mississippi House, he observed a trial in the De Soto County Courthouse that changed his life. He heard the testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim. He began exploring what would have happened if the girl’s father had killed her assailants. With the trial for the storyline and Steinbeck’s clear, clean writing style as a model, Grisham wrote his first novel, A Time to Kill . Most of the writing was done before going to the office and during courtroom recesses. Wynwood Press published A Time to Kill in 1988. It was a small printing, 5,000 copies, and received little attention beyond the mid-South.

Grisham began writing his second novel, The Firm , the film rights to which were purchased by Paramount Pictures in 1990, before it was even published. Doubleday published The Firm in February of 1991, and it moved to the No. 12 spot on the New York Times bestseller list by March 17.

The Firm was the beginning of Grisham’s journey to become the all-time bestselling novelist in the United States. Since The Firm , Grisham has written a novel a year and each has been a longtime feature on the bestseller lists. There are more than 60 million John Grisham books in print worldwide. They have been translated into twenty-nine languages. Doubleday and its parent company, Bartlesmann, carefully orchestrate a logistical plan to make millions of copies of the new book available worldwide on the same day. Many of his books have been made into successful movies, including A Time to Kill , The Pelican Brief , The Client , The Chamber , The Rainmaker , The Runaway Jury , The Street Lawyer , and Skipping Christmas .

In spite of Grisham’s success and fame, he has remained loyal to his roots, early friends, and supporters. His bestseller, A Painted House , published in book form in 2001, is a fictionalized account of his early days on a cotton farm. Hallmark turned the novel into one of its made-for-television movies, filming in and around Lepanto (Poinsett County) ; the farmhouse from the set is on display there. The April 14, 2003, world premiere of the movie at Arkansas State University ’s Fowler Center included a dinner that raised $170,000 in endowment funds for the Heritage Studies PhD program. In 2001, the Arkansas Library Association presented Grisham and A Painted House the Arkansiana Award, recognizing authors and books that represent a significant contribution to Arkansas heritage and culture.

In 1994, Grisham rescued the Oxford American , a financially struggling magazine devoted to covering all things Southern, through a significant investment of money. He also published A Painted House serially in that magazine in 2000, then based in Oxford, Mississippi. Although Grisham is no longer associated with it, Oxford American lives on and is published in partnership with the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in Conway (Faulkner County) .

In 2006, Grisham published his first non-fiction work, The Innocent Man: Murder and Justice in a Small Town . The book centers upon the murder trial of Ronald Williamson and Dennis Fritz of Oklahoma, a trial which resulted in death sentences for them both until DNA evidence cleared their names after eleven years on death row.

He and his wife also established the Rebuild the Coast Fund, raising $8.8 million for storm victims of Hurricane Katrina .

In 2009, Grisham published his first short-story collection, Ford County . In 2010, Grisham published his first book for younger readers, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer ; five others in the series have since been published. Grisham continues to average about one published novel each year.

In September 2023, Grisham joined Jodi Picoult, George R. R. Martin, and other popular authors to sue OpenAI for “systematic theft on a mass scale,” part of a movement toward legal action by writers contending that artificial intelligence programs are using their copyrighted works without their permission.

For additional information: Best, Nancy, ed. Readings on John Grisham . San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003.

Erisman, Fred. “John Grisham’s Ford County: Yoknapatawpha County Updated.” Journal of American Culture 43 (June 2020): 145–155.

Hughes, Libby. The John Grisham Story: From Baseball to Bestsellers . Lincoln, NE: iUniverse Inc., 2004.

Ishizuka, Kathy. John Grisham: Best-Selling Author . Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2003.

John Grisham. https://www.jgrisham.com/ (accessed September 21, 2023).

Sabin, Warwick. “John Grisham: Author.” Arkansas Times , December 14, 2006. Online at https://arktimes.com/general/top-stories/2006/12/14/john-grisham-author (accessed July 5, 2019).

Weaver, Robyn. John Grisham . San Diego: Lucent Books, 1999.

Mary Gay Shipley That Bookstore in Blytheville

My mother Muriel Lee grew up in Black Oak, Arkansas. My grandfather Jack Hubble ran Cisco store. My mother’s best friend was Lucille Bell (“Pop’s”) daughter, which was left out of A Painted House . My grandfather was Granville Roberts, constable of Black Oak (because he couldn’t make a living farming cotton) during that time. Later moving to Lonoke Arkansas. This is just to say how many memorable tears and laughter Grisham’s work brought. Thank you, Cheryl R. Anderson, granddaughter of Jack and Chattie Hubble

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John Grisham

• Bibliography

A Time to Kill (1989) The Firm (1991) The Pelican Brief (1992) The Client (1993) The Chamber (1994) The Rainmaker (1995) The Runaway Jury (1996) The Partner (1997) The Street Lawyer (1998) The Testament (1999) The Brethren (2000) A Painted House (2001) Skipping Christmas (2001) The Summons (2002) The King of Torts (2003) Bleachers (2003) The Last Juror (2004) The Broker (2005) The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006) Playing for Pizza (2007) The Appeal (2008) The Associate (2009) Ford County: Stories (2009) The Confession (2010) The Litigators (2011) Calico Joe (2012) The Racketeer (2012) Sycamore Row (2013) Gray Mountain (2014) Theodore Boone: The Fugitive (2015) Rogue Lawyer (2015)

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John Grisham

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John Grisham

The unchallenged ace of the crime and legal thrillers, John Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1955. He was the second of five kin. His family, headed by his father who was a development laborer and a cotton rancher, moved much of the time until 1967. The family then settled in Southaven which is a small community in De Soto County, Mississippi.

Youthful John cherished baseball and grew up with dreams of an expert profession. Supported by his parents, he turned into an ardent reader. He was particularly impacted by John Steinbeck whose lucidity he respected. In the long run, he understood that genius ball wasn’t likely so he put forth a concentrated effort to scholastics. Toward this end, he went to Mississippi State University where he studied bookkeeping.

During his studies, Grisham started keeping a diary and hence built up the composing propensity. He continued to get a law degree in 1981 and proceeded to rehearse small community general law in Southaven for almost 10 years, with this practice he gained practical experience in criminal resistance and individual injury suits. In time, he got exhausted with criminal law and became successful at common law.

He published his first and second books and became a bestseller since then. Other than being exceptionally well known with readers, Grisham’s books have delighted in unrivaled accomplishment as films. Among those that have prevailed in the film are ‘’The Firm’’, ‘’The Pelican Brief’’, ‘’The Client’’, ‘’A Time to Kill’’, ‘’The Rainmaker’’, and ‘’the Chamber’’.

Grisham lives with his family including his wife and two kids. They split their time between their Victorian home in Mississippi and an estate close Charlottesville, VA.

A Short Biography of John Grisham

John Ray Grisham Junior was born on 8 th February 1955. His birth took place in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His father was Wanda and John Ray Grisham. He had four siblings and he was on the second number in five children of the couple. His mother was a homemaker. His father was a cotton farmer and constructor worker. His family moved to Southaven, Mississippi, and got settled there when Grisham was only four years old.

His childhood aim was to become a baseball player. He had played baseball till the age of 18. He then left playing baseball because an opponent player tried to strike him with a ball and give him a serious blow.

Grisham was converted to Christianity when he was 8 years old. He discussed this issue as the most important occasion of his life. He then pursued law education. When he left the school of law he went for some missionary work in Brazil. This was done under the First Baptist Church of Oxford.

When he was a teenager, he worked in a plant nursery where he would be paid 1 dollar per hour. He was then shifted to the crew of the fence where he would get 1.50 dollars per hour. But he was not interested in those jobs. At the age of 17, he got a job in Mississippi on a highway asphalt crew. 

One day, there arose a fight between the workers and resulted in some gunfire. The workers had to save him in different places. Grisham saved himself in a restroom. Later on, he ran home and started thinking about pursuing education in college. His parents had not acquired formal education but they encouraged Grisham for a college education.

After this job, he started working in a department store where he was a sales clerk in the men’s underwear section. He described the job as humiliating. Till this time, he had started his college and wanted to become a tax lawyer. But then he decided to become a trial lawyer and return to his hometown.

His college was Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia. Later on, he joined Delta State University in Cleveland. He had a sort of drift in his nature and because of this, he had to change his college thrice before getting his degree. In 1977, he graduated from Mississippi State University. He received a B.S. degree in accounting. Afterwards, he got enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law. He wanted to pursue law but his mind shifted to civil litigation. He received a degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D) in 1981.

The same year, he got married to Renee Jones. They have two children Shea and Ty. Ty played baseball for the University of Virginia.

Grisham practiced law for almost ten years. He then won an election as a democrat and became a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives. He served the office from 1984 to 1990. For this service he received an annual salary of 8000 dollars. Grisham during his tenure of the House of Representative represented the seventh district that included DeSoto County.

He served as the vice-chairman of the Appointment and Elections Committee during his second term as the state legislature in Mississippi. He also remained a member of various other committees.

 When he published his second work The Firm, he got success and had to retire from his law career. But he returned to law to fight for a railroad worker who got killed during his job time.

One day, while in court, he overheard a story of a 12-year-old girl who was narrating her rape and beating story to the jury. Grisham was very much moved with the story. When the girl ended the story, the jury was crying too. He got his inspiration from the story and completed a full length in three years. The title was “A Time to Kill.” Almost 28 publishers rejected the idea of publishing a book. In 1989, Wynwood Press decided to publish the book with only 5000 copies.

After the publication of his first book, he started composing his second book, The Firm. When this book got published, it remained on The New York Times best-seller for forty-seven weeks. It also became the 7 th best-selling novel of 1991. He published his third book The Pelican Brief in 1993 and The Client in 1994. In 2001, he published The Summons and it was a best-seller too.

John Grisham has won several awards. These include

Golden Plate Award by the American Academy of Achievement in 1993

Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award by the Tulsa Library Trust in 2005

Galaxy British Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007

Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction in 2009

The Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction Award in 2011

Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction in 2014

John Grisham’s Writing Style

Point of view.

Most of the novels written by John Grisham are from a third-person perspective.  The tales are told from the point of view of an omniscient storyteller, in third individual utilizing past tense. This is the most agreeable perspective for the audience. This point of view is basic for two significant reasons. To start with, just an omniscient storyteller can give the audience access to all the warring components, and there are many. 

Second, none of the principle characters could give a solid, impartial report of the novel’s occasions. All things considered, it is important that a great part of the story’s activity is separated through the psyche of Jack Brigance in A Time to Kill. For instance, when Jake’s home catches fire, the peruser sees the occasion more from Jake’s vantage point than from that of the Klan or law implementation. Readers come to know Ellen Roark and Carla Brigance more from the way Jake sees them than from a real target position.

Tone of his Novels

Most of his novels are legal thrillers and they are carried out by the happening of action so the general tone of the majority of his novels is sad and tragic.

John Grisham mostly writes Legal thrillers and this is one of his most favorite genres for writing. These thrillers are marked by the suspense he creates in the pages to attract and hold the readers. The readers are then compelled to continue reading the book until the end to come to a conclusion that is always hair-raising for the readers.

For example, The Firm is a suspense thriller finishing in a hair-raising pursuit with the hero and his partners being sought after by two incredible and risky powers. As a normal case of this class, The Firm isn’t excessively troubled with subject or importance, since its basic role is clearly to hold the consideration of the audience. 

The tale is, in the well-known speech, a “page-turner,” and in this way, it isn’t important or even attractive for the writer to trouble the readers’ psyche with philosophical or moral contemplations. Surely, the activities of the hero have substantial moral ramifications; however, what a definitive moral articulation of the novel is proposed to be is hard to state. 

On the off chance that Mitchell and his partners had only crushed the Mafia and got away from their lethal plans, an unmistakable good articulation would have been clear in the novel. However, they likewise outmaneuver the FBI and get away with a lot of money, in this manner profiting in a roundabout way from the unlawful demonstrations they should uncover. As an outcome, the significance to be drawn from the novel is obfuscated.

Foreshadowing

In almost all of his novels, John Grisham has used Foreshadowing. Many of the incidents at the start of the novels foreshadow the later events and the conclusion of the novels.

For example in A Time to Kill, Tonya`s rape foreshadows her meaningless life in the future.  She cannot bear children because of the torture she has endured. This also implies that she cannot have a good sort of relationship and trust in the opposite sex because the torture has mentally captured her.

John Grisham uses imagery in most of his novels to consolidate the perspectives of the actions he is writing about. He wants the readers to be indulged in the scenes and extract the real meanings of the text because he allegorically tries to explain many things in his writings.

For example in his first novel, A Time to Kill, in which a darker looking young lady, who was assaulted, is ten years old. When Tonya is discovered, she lies on her elbows, which are stuck and bound along with yellow nylon rope. Her legs are spread with the right foot attached tight to an oak sapling and the left to a decaying, inclining post of a since a long time ago ignored fence. 

The rope has cut into her lower legs and the blood runs down her legs. Her face is swollen. The picture of the assaulted young lady gives an impression about the world, which is brimming with unfeeling and appalling individuals.

Major Themes

One of the major themes in John Grisham’s novels is racism. He deals with the subject of racism in many of his writings. He has spent a lot of time in courts and has witnessed many cases of racism. He has then drawn his inspiration from these cases of racism.

For example, in A Time to Kill, Rednecks abhorred the blacks, and the blacks had a similar inclination toward the rednecks. This made an issue in the jury and the case in general. Every attorney needed a jury of either blacks or whites (Jake needing the dark members of the jury), in spite of the fact that the jury ought to be chosen relying upon reliable individuals who are known to judge appropriately without prejudice. 

This demonstrates bigotry is all over. It causes us to notice the need to join together and care about the main problem and the individuals who were included and hurt as opposed to their shading or race. The prejudice got so awful that near the story’s end, numerous individuals were murdered in light of the fact that they upheld a specific gathering and a major battle happened between the blacks and the Ku Klux Klan.

Irony is another special device that John Grisham uses in his novels. He is talking about the legal issues in his novels. He sometimes criticizes the legal frameworks of his own country where the blacks suffer due to the issues of racism. For this very reason, he resorts to use irony. In this way, he achieves his purpose and at the same time avoids any sort of criticism as well.

For example in his first novel, he writes that Carl Lee Hailey incidentally shoots a cop, Looney, who accompanies Tonya’s attackers to the court. Hailey’s legal advisor Jake says that Carl doesn’t plan to execute a cop. Jake promptly inquires as to whether Looney is alright. Lucien sincerely answers that “Looney is fine. Simply short a leg.” It sounds amusing, in light of the fact that it is exceptionally dubious that Looney is cheerful without his leg.

Use of Symbols

John Grisham writes legal thrillers and these thrillers are filled with a number of symbols to convey the meanings of the writers. John Grisham uses a number of symbols in his novels and makes the readers understand what he wants to say in between the lines of the text.

For example, in A Time to Kill, he uses a machine gun as a symbol for revenge and retribution. Retribution is the most horrible deed. Carl chooses to submit a horrendous deed – to render retribution on two barbaric men for having beaten and assaulted his little and honest girl. Carl rapidly discovers an M-16 automatic rifle and decimates the irrelevant existence of two attackers. Carl murders them and his vengeance is to satisfy his psyche. M-16 isn’t only a weapon. It is an image of retribution and passing.

Works Of John Grisham

• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
• Thrillers & Suspense

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Sparring Partners: Novellas Hardcover – May 31, 2022

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• Print length 320 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Doubleday
• Publication date May 31, 2022
• Dimensions 6.45 x 1.2 x 9.52 inches
• ISBN-10 0385549326
• ISBN-13 978-0385549325
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Doubleday; First Edition (May 31, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385549326
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385549325
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.45 x 1.2 x 9.52 inches
• #135 in Legal Thrillers (Books)
• #667 in Political Thrillers (Books)
• #776 in Short Stories (Books)

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About the author

John grisham.

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

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