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John Grisham (1955)

Legal Thrillers

John Grisham

John Ray Grisham, the second oldest of five children, was born on February 8, 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  His parents were Southern Baptist of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer while his mother was a housewife. After relocating numerous times, the family settled in 1967 in the town of Southaven, Mississippi, where Grisham graduated from Southaven High School. He played as a quarterback for the school football team. Encouraged by his mother, the young Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck. His brother Vaughn is one of the nation's main experts on Community Development and is a professor of Public Administration at the University of Mississippi.

During 1977, John Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. He tried out for the baseball team at Delta State University, but was dismissed by the coach, who was the former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dave "Boo" Ferris. Grisham and Ferris have since teamed to host a fundraiser for Delta State Baseball, at which the two discussed how and why Ferris dismissed Grisham, telling him he should "stick to the books". He earned his Doctor degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. During law school Grisham switched interests from tax law to criminal and general civil litigation. Upon graduation he entered a small-town general law practice for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he focused on criminal law and civil law representing a broad spectrum of clients. As a young attorney he spent much of his time in court proceedings.

During 1983 he was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. He has donated over $100,000 to Democratic Party candidates. During September, 2007 Grisham appeared with Hillary Rodham Clinton, his stated choice for U.S. President in 2008, and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, whom Grisham supported for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican John Warner (no relation). Grisham himself had considered challenging former GOP U.S. Senator George Allen, Jr. in the 2006 Virginia Senatorial Election.

In 1984 at the DeSoto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the distressing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. Grisham used his spare time to begin work on his first novel, which explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. He spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988. In 1996 the book was made into a movie Click Here

The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. This second book, The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991. This book was also made into a movie Click Here. Grisham then produced at least one work a year, most of them very popular bestsellers. He authored seven number-one bestselling novels between 1994 and 2005. 

Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s," selling over 60 million copies. He is also one of only a few authors to sell two million copies on a first printing; others include Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling. Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold over 11 million copies in the United States alone. The Pelican Brief was also made into a movie Click Here

After being away for five years, Grisham returned briefly to practice law during 1996. He was honoring a commitment he made before he had retired from the law...representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500." Another tie to the legal community that he continues to hold is his seat on the Board of Directors for the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating the innocent through DNA testing after they have been convicted.

In 2006 John Grisham wrote his first true crime, The Innocent Man which is a story about a small-town waitress who was raped and murdered in 1982. Six years later Ron Williamson, a washed-up small-town baseball hero, and his friend, Dennis Fritz, were unjustly charged and tried based on lying witnesses and tainted evidence. Williamson was sentenced to death and Fritz to life in prison. However after spending eleven years in prison for a crime they did not commit both men were exonerated through DNA testing.

Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is evident in his novel A Painted House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr.. The movie was released on DVD in April 2004. He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball.

Grisham is also well known within the literary community for his efforts to support the continuing literary tradition of his native south. He has endowed scholarships and writer's residencies in the University of Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program and was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a magazine devoted to literary writing. The magazine is famous for its annual music issue, copies of which include a compilation CD featuring contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from blues and gospel to country-western and alternative rock.

Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist," and has performed mission service for his church in Brazil and that country provided the setting for two of his novels: The Testament, which has a strong religious theme; and The Partner. His lasts legal thriller, The Associate, was published in 2009. A movie is being planned for 2012.

Grisham lives with his wife, Renee, and their two children, Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi, and a home near Charlottesville, Virginia. In 2008, he and Renee bought a condo in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

John Grisham's Best Selling Legal Thrillers

• A Time to Kill (1988) This is a tale of a young lawyer defending a black Vietnam war hero who kills the white druggies who raped his child in tiny Clanton, Mississippi.  The was John Grisham's first novel.

• The Firm (1991) There was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," but this legal thriller describes the inner workings of a law firm set up by the Mafia to launder money and concoct tax evasions.

• The Pelican Brief (1992) The heroine of this legal thriller is Darby Shaw, a brilliant Tulane law student who comes up with an ingenious theory to explain the baffling assassinations of two Supreme Court justices in one day. They were shot and strangled by ace international terrorist Khamel, who loves the film Three Days of the Condor, but government gumshoes don't get what connects the deaths. They died so the conservative president, who just wants to be left alone to play golf, will appoint new, conservative justices who will help out a case involving an industrialist who is the enemy of pelicans and other living things. It's all spelled out for them in Darby's brief.

• The Client (1993) Eleven-year-old Mark Sway, taking his kid brother for a smoke behind their Memphis trailer park, witnesses the suicide of a lawyer "driven crazy" by a lethal secret. Before he dies, the man confides to Mark where the body of a recently murdered U.S. senator lies buried, Trailed by the police, the FBI and assorted Mafia types.  The deceased politician was the victim of "a successful New Orleans street thug". Mark retains--for one dollar--the services of Reggie Love, a 50ish female lawyer, to help solve the case.

• The Chamber (1994) Adam Hall is a 26-year-old attorney, fresh out of law school and working at the best firm in Chicago. He might have been humming "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," if it wasn't for his psychotic Southern grandfather, Sam Cayhall. Cayhall, a card-carrying member of the KKK, is on death row for killing two men. Knowing his uncle will surely die without his legal expertise, Hall comes to the rescue and puts his dazzling career at stake, while digging up a barnyard of skeletons from his family's past.

• The Rainmaker (1995) Rudy Baylor, a new law school graduate, once dreamed of the good life as a corporate attorney. Now he faces joblessness and bankruptcy, unless he can win an insurance case against a heavyweight team of lawyers, a case that starts small but mushrooms into a frightening war of nerve and legal skill that could cost Rudy not only his future, but also his life.

• The Runaway Jury (1996) Millions of dollars are at stake in a huge tobacco company case in Biloxi, and the jury's packed with people who have dirty little secrets. A mysterious young man takes subtle control of the jury as the defense watches helplessly, but they soon realize that he in turn is controlled by an even more mysterious young woman.

• The Partner (1997) This is a story about a lawyer in trouble. Patrick Lanigan had been a young partner in a prominent Southern law firm. He had a beautiful wife, a new baby girl, and a bright future. Then one winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car; the casket they buried held nothing but ashes. A short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial then fled. A fortune was stolen from his ex-firm's offshore account. And Patrick ran, covering his tracks the whole way. But, now, they've found him.

• The Street Lawyer (1998) This is a novel against anyone, big or little, who treats the homeless as less than human. It begins with an armed, homeless man who calls himself Mister taking hostage of nine attorneys of a huge law firm headquartered in D.C. Among the nine is Michael Brock, an antitrust lawyer who receives a faceful of blood when a police sniper blows away Mister's head. This greedy hotshot is ripe for a moral awakening. The next day, Michael visits the shabby offices of Mister's attorney, Mordecai Green, who explains that Mister and others had been illegally evicted from makeshift housing on orders from a real-estate development company represented by Michael's firm. Inspired by Green and shaken by his firm's complicity, Michael volunteers at a homeless shelter. When a family he meets there dies on the street, and turns out to have been among the evictees, Michael quits his job, goes to work for Green and, using as evidence a file he steals from the firm, aims to sue his former employer on behalf of the evictees.

• The Testament (1999) Troy Phelan, a 78-year-old eccentric and the 10th-richest man in America, is about to read his last will and testament for his estate worth $11 billion. Phelan's three ex-wives, a legion of lawyers, several psychiatrists, and a group of sound technicians wait breathlessly, all eyes glued to digital monitors as they watch the old man read his verdict. But Phelan shocks everyone when he left his entire estate to a mysterious heir in Brazil. Nate O'Riley, a washed-up, alcoholic litigator with two ruined marriages and the IRS on his tail, is dispatched to the Brazilian wetlands in search of a mysterious heir named in the will. After a harrowing trip upriver to a remote settlement in the Pantanal, he finds Rachel Lane, a pure-hearted missionary living with an indigenous tribe and carrying out "God's work." Rachel's dedication and kindness impress the jaded lawyer, so much that a nasty bout of dengue fever leads him to a vision that could change his life.

• The Brethren (2000) The Brethren are three judges who meet in Trumble Prison after being sent there for their various crimes. They spend hours together in the prison library setting up a scam to blackmail rich gay men who are married and who have a lot to lose if their homosexuality is revealed. With the help of their unambitious and dishonest lawyer, they begin to make a lot of money. The Brethren advertise for pen-pals in gay magazines (using the name Ricky). Their lawyer takes care of collecting and delivering the pen-pal letters to the prison and hiding the money in bank accounts in the Bahamas. When the Brethren receive a few letters with incriminating evidence, they demand money and threaten to reveal their victims’ secret. Meanwhile, the CIA director, Teddy Maynard, is trying to save the United States from Russian attacks, and possibly from a third world war. He creates the perfect candidate, who will increase defense spending and build up the US military, in time for the next presidential election. Congressman Aaron Lake is “a solid candidate.” What Maynard doesn’t know is that Lake has written two letters to “Ricky.” When he discovers Lake’s secret, he and his men at the CIA work to uncover the scam in order to cleanse their candidate’s private life.

• The Summons (2002) Law professor Ray Atlee and his brother, Forrest, are summoned home to Clanton, Mississippi, by their ailing father to discuss his will. But when Ray arrives the father is already dead, and the one-page document dividing his meager estate between the two sons seems crystal clear. What the will doesn't mention, however, is the small fortune, $3 million in cash, Ray discovers hidden in the old man's house and doesn't mention it to brother Forrest.

• The King of Torts (2003) This is a legal thriller set in Washington DC. An aspiring young lawyer in the Public Defender's office is assigned a case that appears to be nothing more than one of many crack cocaine murders in the capital. However, he digs deeper and begins to uncover a conspiracy that is bigger than him and perhaps bigger than the justice system itself.

• The Last Juror (2004) In 1970, small town newspaper The Clanton Times went belly up. With financial assistance from a rich relative, it's purchased by 23-year-old Willie Traynor, formerly the paper's cub reporter. Soon afterward, his new business receives the readership boost it needs thanks to his editorial efforts and coverage of a particularly brutal rape and murder committed by Danny Padgitt, a member of the town's reclusive bootlegger family. Even though those who oppose the Padgitt family tend to turn up dead in the swampland, rather than shy from reporting on the subsequent open-and-shut trial, Traynor launches a crusade to ensure the unrepentant murderer is brought to justice. When a guilty verdict is returned, the town is relieved to find the Padgitt family's grip on the town did not sway the jury, though Danny Padgitt is sentenced to life in prison rather than death. But, when Padgitt is released after serving less than a decade in jail and members of the jury are murdered, Clanton once again finds itself at the mercy of its renegade family.

• The Broker (2005) Before he was sent to federal prison for treason (among other things), Joel Backman was an extremely powerful man. Known as "the broker," Backman was a high rolling lawyer making $10 million a year who could "open any door in Washington." That is, until he tried to broker a deal selling access to the world's most powerful satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder. When caught, Backman accepted prison as the one option that would keep him safe and alive, since the interested parties (the Israelis, the Saudis, the Russians, and the Chinese) were all itching to get their hands on his secrets at any cost. Little does he know that his own government has designs on accessing that information or at least letting it die with him. Now, six years after his incarceration, the director of the CIA convinces a lame duck president to pardon Backman, and the broker becomes a free man and an open target.

• The Appeal (2008) A Mississippi jury returns a $41-million verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping carcinogenic waste into a small town's water supply. The company's ruthless billionaire CEO is defeated and the good guys (a courageous young woman who lost her husband and child and her two lawyers who've gone half a million dollars in debt preparing her case) receives its just reward.

• The Associate (2009) Kyle McAvoy, a Yale Law School student, dreams of a public service job upon graduation, until shadowy figures blackmail him with a videotape that could revive a five-year-old rape accusation. Instead of helping those in need, McAvoy accepts a position at a huge Wall Street firm, Scully & Pershing, whose clients include a military contractor enmeshed in a $800 billion lawsuit concerning a newly-designed aircraft. McAvoy can avoid exposure of his past if he feeds his new masters inside information on the case.

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