Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi, law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel.
Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Realizing he didn’t have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990.
One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl’s father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988.
That might have put an end to Grisham’s hobby. However, he had already begun his next book, and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time career—and spark one of publishing’s greatest success stories. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a hotshot young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. When he sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, Grisham suddenly became a hot property among publishers, and book rights were bought by Doubleday. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became the bestselling novel of 1991.
The successes of The Pelican Brief, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Client, which debuted at number one, confirmed Grisham’s reputation as the master of the legal thriller. Grisham’s success even renewed interest in A Time to Kill, which was republished in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Dell. This time around, it was a bestseller.
Since first publishing A Time to Kill in 1988, Grisham has written one novel a year (his other books are The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, A Painted House, Skipping Christmas, The Summons, The King of Torts, Bleachers, The Last Juror, The Broker, Playing for Pizza, The Appeal, The Associate, The Confession, The Litigators, Calico Joe, The Racketeer, Sycamore Row, Gray Mountain, Rogue Lawyer, The Whistler, Camino Island, The Rooster Bar, The Reckoning, and The Guardians) and all of them have become international bestsellers. There are currently over 300 million John Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated into 40 languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas), as was an original screenplay, The Gingerbread Man. The Innocent Man (October 2006) marked his first foray into non-fiction, and Ford County (November 2009) was his first short story collection.
Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his books’ protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients’ case, earning them a jury award of $683,500—the biggest verdict of his career.
When he’s not writing, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.
When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the monsters 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
Publisher: Random House
A US State Senator is dead. Only Mark Sway knows where the body is hidden.
And he's eleven years old.
The FBI want him to tell them where it is, regardless of the risk to the boy and his family.
The killer wants to silence him permanently.
Reggie
Publisher: Bounty Books
Adam Hill is in his first year at a top Chicago law firm. He volunteers for the toughest assignment any lawyer could ask for. His prospective client doesn't want Adam or his law firm. He is an unrepentent and outspoken racist with a violent past. He
Publisher: Bounty Books
One case. One chance. One man against the world.
Rudy Baylor is a newly qualified lawyer, forced into ambulance-chasing by bad luck and poor job prospects. Unexpectedly, he winds up on a case representing a family whose son was denied insurance cove
Publisher: Random House
Michael Brock is a man in a hurry. He's in the fast lane at Drake & Sweeney, a giant Washington law firm. He's a rising star, with no time to waste, no time to toss a few coins into the hands of beggars. No time for a conscience.
But a chance violen
Publisher: Arrow Books
Troy Phelen is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die.
Nate O'Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who's lived too hard, to
Publisher: Arrow Books
Trumble is a minimum security federal prison, home to drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, and three former judges who call themselves The Brethren. They meet each day in the law library where they spend hours writing lette
Publisher: Arrow Books
An edge-of-your-seat legal thriller from the undisputed master of the courtroom drama.
Ray Atlee teaches law at the University of Virginia. His ailing father, Judge Atlee, was once a loved - and feared - titan, towering over local law and politics i
Publisher: Arrow Books
When justice is for sale, every jury has a price.
In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark trial against a tobacco company begins.
There are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and soon it swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving st
Publisher: Random House
They found him in a small town in Brazil, near the border with Paraguay. He had a new name, Danilo Silva, and his appearance had been changed by plastic surgery. The search had taken four years. They'd chased him around the world, always just missing
Publisher: Arrow Books
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 you
Publisher: Random House
Never make an enemy of a murderer.
In 1970, the Ford County Times went bankrupt - and to the surprise and dismay of many, was bought by 23-year-old college dropout Willie Traynor. The paper's future was grim, until a young mother was brutally raped
Publisher: Random House
In his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing President grants a full pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. It's a controversial move, but what no one else k
Publisher: Arrow Books
Glory never dies.
Neely Crenshaw was the best quarterback ever to play for the Messina Spartans, the state's most legendary high school football team. But fifteen years later, with the glory days far behind them, the man everyone remembers is Coach
Publisher: CornerStone
Money can buy you anything. Even a verdict...
In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking guilty verdict against a chemical company. Accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town's water supply, causing the worst "cancer clus
Publisher: Arrow Books
John Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.
In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson
Publisher: Arrow Books
It's a deadly game of blackmail. And they're making him play.
Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he's good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a s
Publisher: CornerStone
THE CLASSIC NO. 1 BESTSELLER
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Two Supreme Court Justices are dead, their murders unsolved.
But one woman might have found the answer – if she can live to tell it.
Darby Shaw is a brilliant New Orleans le
Publisher: Arrow Books
It's a deadly game of blackmail. And they're making him play.
Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he's good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a
Publisher: Random House
The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist high to my fa
Publisher: Random House
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There are some cases you have to take.
Adam Hill is a rookie lawyer at a top Chicago firm. The world is at his feet.
So why does he volunteer to represent a KKK terrorist under threat of execution?
And why i
Publisher: Arrow Books
A US State Senator is dead. Only Mark Sway knows where the body is hidden.
And he's eleven years old.
The FBI want him to tell them where it is, regardless of the risk to the boy and his family.
The killer wants to silence him permanently.
Reggie
Publisher: Arrow Books
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One case. One chance. One man against the world.
Rookie lawyer Rudy Baylor is about to take on the case of a lifetime,
Fighting for justice for a young man whose death could have easily been prevented.
There
Publisher: Bounty Books
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Michael Brock is a man in the fast lane.
He's a rising star at Drake & Sweeney, a giant Washington law firm. No time to waste, no time to toss a few coins to beggars. No time for a conscience.
Until the day a
Publisher: Arrow Books
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.
F
Publisher: BANTAM BOOKS
An innocent man is days from execution. Only a guilty man can save him.
Travis Boyette is a murderer. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it
Publisher: Random House
Glory never dies.
Neely Crenshaw was the best quarterback ever to play for the Messina Spartans, the state's most legendary high school football team. But fifteen years later, with the glory days far behind them, the man everyone remembers is Coach
Publisher: CornerStone
When Mitchell McDeere qualified third in his class at Harvard, offers poured in from every law firm in America. Bendini, Lambert and Locke were a small, well-respected firm, but their offer exceeded Mitch's wildest expectations: a fantastic salary, a
Publisher: Random House
John Grisham's legal thriller takes you inside a law firm that shouldn't exist.
Law students Mark, Todd and Zola wanted to change the world - to make it a better place. But these days these three disillusioned friends spend a lot of time hanging out
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
The partners at Finley & Figg-all two of them-often refer to themselves as "a boutique law firm." Boutique, as in chic, selective, and prosperous. They are, of course, none of these things. What they are is a two-bit operation always in search of the
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
