Books
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer
Published: May 2010
With two attorneys for parents, thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone knows more about the law than most lawyers do. But when a high profile murder trial comes to his small town and Theo gets pulled into it, it’s up to this amateur attorney to save the day.
“Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer” is John Grisham’s first children’s book and will be published on May 25, 2010.
Ford County
Published: November 2009
Three good ol’ boys from rural Ford County begin a journey to the big city of Memphis to give blood to a grievously injured friend. However, they are unable to drive past a beer store as the trip takes longer and longer.
Quiet, dull Sidney, a data collector for an insurance company, perfects his blackjack skills in hopes of bringing down the casino empire of Clanton’s most ambitious hustler, Bobby Carl Leach.
The Associate
Published: January 2009
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 secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life. “The Associate” is John Grisham’s upcoming 384-page legal thriller that will be released for sale on January 27, 2009.
The Appeal
Published: January 2008
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.
Playing For Pizza
Published: September 2007
A fallen American football star who can no longer get work in the National Football League and whose agent, as a last resort, signs a deal for him to play for the Parma Panthers, in Parma, Italy. The quarterback’s move to a small city in a foreign land leads to a series of cultural misadventures.
The Innocent Man
Published: October 2006
In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits—drinking, drugs, and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.
The Broker
Published: January 2005
The President, whose term of office is about to end, grands a last-minute quarter to the notorious Washington power broker Joel Backman who has spent his last six years locked up in a federal prison. No one knows that the President made the decision under strong pression of the CIA. That is because in his times Backman obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.
The Last Juror
Published: February 2004
In 1970, one of Mississippi’s more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. Many were surprised when the ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout Willie Traynor. Newspaper’s future looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper.
Bleachers
Published: September 2003
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.
The King Of Torts
Published: February 2003
The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter feels that his career has stopped and dreams of a better job in a successful firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another one of the senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.
The Summons
Published: February 2002
Ray Atlee is a professor at law at the University of Virginia. He’s forty-three, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother Forrest, who’s their family’s black sheep. And his father, Judge Atlee, is a sick old man who lives alone in the family mansion in Clanton, Mississipi. Old Atlee feels that his end is near and issues a summons for both sons to return home.
Skipping Christmas
Published: October 2001
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.
A Painted House
Published: February 2001
A farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that’s never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.
The Brethren
Published: February 2000
Trumble is a minimum-security federal prison, a “camp,” home to the usual assortment of relatively harmless criminals – drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, two Wall Street crooks, one doctor, at least five lawyers. And three former judges who call themselves the Brethren: one from Texas, one from California, and one from Mississippi.
The Testament
Published: February 1999
Troy Phelan 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. His heirs, are circling like vultures. Nate O’Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who’s lived too hard, too fast, for too long. He is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab. Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it’s going to be murder.
The Street Lawyer
Published: February 1998
Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm with eight hundred lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience.
The Partner
Published: February 1997
They watched Danilo Silva for days before they finally grabbed him. He was living alone, a quiet life on a shady street in Brazil; a simple life in a modest home, certainly not one of luxury. Certainly no evidence of the fortune they thought he had stolen. He was much thinner and his face had been altered. He spoke a different language, and spoke it very well. But Danilo had a past with many chapters.
The Runaway Jury
Published: May 1996
Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake beginsroutinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juroris convinced he’s being watched. Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled?
The Rainmaker
Published: April 1995
Rudy Baylor is a young man barely out of law school who finds himself taking on one of the most powerful, corrupt, and ruthless companies in America – and exposing a complex, multibillion-dollar insurance scam. In his final semester of law school he is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is there that he meets his first “clients,” Dot and Buddy Black.
The Chamber
Published: May 1994
In the corridors of Chicago’s top law firm: 26-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case. Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison: Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967.
The Client
Published: February 1993
In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb… Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America.
The Pelican Brief
Published: February 1992
In suburban Georgetown a killer’s Reeboks whisper on the front 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.
The Firm
Published: February 1991
At the top of his class at Harvard Law, he had his choice of the best in America. He made a deadly mistake. When Mitch McDeere signed on with Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought 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 him a decorator.
A Time To Kill
Published: 1989; November 1993
The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her black father acquires an assault rifle – and takes justice into his own outraged hands. For ten days the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client’s life… and then his own…
Other publications
Published: N/A
Essays, forewords, etc.
