Bookquote.net Bookquote.net – Books Review and Quote site
Related Articles
If you think of a heart-pumping legal thriller, you probably picture John Grisham, one of the most successful authors in modern history. In the following article, we would like to introduce to you the 20 Best John Grisham Books in 2023 that we should not miss. Let’s go through each of these books together
About John Grisham
John Grisham (born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 28 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing.
Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practised criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.
Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. Grisham’s first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films:
- The Chamber,
- The Client,
- A Painted House,
- The Pelican Brief,
- The Rainmaker,
- The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas.
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 Girsham lives on a farm in central Virginia.
20 Best John Grisham Books in 2023
Descriptions provided by Amazon and lightly edited for clarity and length.
#1 Sparring Partners by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham is the acknowledged master of the legal thriller. In his first collection of novellas, law is a common thread, but America’s favorite storyteller has several surprises in store.
“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.
Read more: Sparring Partners (Review-Quotes) by John Grisham
#2 The Boys from Biloxi: A Legal Thriller by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two families. One courtroom showdown. • John Grisham’s most gripping thriller yet. • “A legal literary legend.” —USA Today
John Grisham returns to Mississippi with the riveting story of two sons of immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Grisham’s trademark twists and turns will keep you tearing through the pages until the stunning conclusion.
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.
Life itself hangs in the balance in The Boys from Biloxi, a sweeping saga rich with history and with a large cast of unforgettable characters.
Read more: The Boys from Biloxi: A Legal Thriller [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#3 The Whistler by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A high-stakes thrill ride through the darkest corners of the Sunshine State, from the author hailed as “the best thriller writer alive” by Ken Follett
The Whistler is a novel written by American author John Grisham. It was released in hardcover, large print paperback, e-book, compact disc audiobook and downloadable audiobook on October 25, 2016. It is a legal thriller about Florida Board on Judicial Conduct investigator Lacy Stoltz.
The plot centers on the legal and moral problems involved in Native American gaming. The (fictional) Tappacola Nation, a small Native American tribe located in the northern part of Florida, starts a casino in their reservation, giving the tribe members an unprecedented economic affluence and a measure of compensation for their sufferings during the centuries of European settlement, but also opening wide the potential for corruption and involvement with organized crime, up to and including outright murder.
Plot
A mysterious source contacts the (fictional) Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, or BJC, promising information that will reveal the identity and crimes of the most corrupt judge in U.S. history. Investigator Lacy Stoltz is assigned to the case, and takes her sometime-partner Hugo Hatch with her to St. Augustine to meet the source in person. The source is revealed to be a disgraced lawyer from Pensacola named Ramsey Mix.
Mix reveals that the corrupt judge is Claudia McDover of Florida’s 24th Circuit. Over the course of almost two decades, McDover has aided the local Coast Mafia in their scheme to build a casino in partnership with the Tappacola Indian Nation. Aside from skimming money from the casino, the Coast Mafia has also been responsible for many nearby real estate developments, with any legal problems smoothed over by McDover in exchange for cash payments and condominiums. In addition, the Coast Mafia has staged the murder of Son Razko, a prominent anti-casino member of the Tappacola Nation, and McDover has falsely convicted his right-hand man, Junior Mace, of the crime. Mix has been given this information by an intermediary representing an unknown “mole” close to McDover.
When Stoltz and Hatch begin an investigation, the leader of the Coast Mafia, Vonn Dubose, decides to retaliate. Stoltz and Hatch are lured to a remote part of the Tappacola reservation by a tribal member claiming to be a source. Driving away from the uneventful meeting, the duo are deliberately struck head-on by a truck. Hatch is killed and Stoltz is badly injured. This escalation convinces the director of the BJC, Michael Geismar, to ask for help from the FBI. However, the up-and-coming mob lieutenant tasked with killing Hatch and Stoltz left behind evidence at the crime scene and was caught on video at a nearby convenience store. Aided by this evidence and a former Tappacola Nation constable, BJC and FBI investigators find Hatch’s killers and offer them reduced sentences in exchange for information against those higher up in the Coast Mafia.
As their operation begins to unravel, Dubose and McDover realize there is a leak. Suspicion lands on McDover’s court recorder, JoHelen Hooper, who is in fact Mix’s source. Realizing her danger, Hooper hides in a cheap hotel on Panama City Beach, but she is tracked there by a Coast Mafia hitman. With Stoltz’s help, she manages to evade the hitman. Both women retreat to a lakeside cabin in North Carolina for safety while the FBI captures Dubose and McDover.
Read more: The Whistler [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#4 Sooley by John Grisham
Sooley is a New Blockbuster Novel From Bestselling Author John Grisham Where He explained 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.
About Sooley
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?
Gripping and moving, Sooley showcases John Grisham’s unparalleled storytelling powers in a whole new light. This is Grisham at the top of his game.
Read more: Sooley [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#5 A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance Book 1) by John Grisham
A Time to Kill is a 1989 legal thriller and debut novel by American author John Grisham. The novel was rejected by many publishers before Wynwood Press eventually gave it a 5,000-copy printing. When Doubleday published The Firm, Wynwood released a trade paperback of A Time to Kill, which became a bestseller. Dell published the mass market paperback months after the success of The Firm, bringing Grisham to widespread popularity among readers. Doubleday eventually took over the contract for A Time to Kill and released a special hardcover edition.
In 1996, the novel was adapted into a namesake film, starring Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, and Samuel L. Jackson. In 2011, it was further adapted into a namesake stage play by Rupert Holmes. The stage production opened at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. in May 2011 and opened on Broadway in October 2013. The novel spawned two sequels currently, Sycamore Row, released in 2013, and A Time for Mercy, released in 2020.
Plot
In the small town of Clanton, in fictional Ford County, Mississippi, a ten-year-old African-American girl named Tonya Hailey is viciously raped and beaten by two white supremacists, James “Pete” Willard and Billy Ray Cobb. Tonya is later found and rushed to the hospital while Pete and Billy Ray are heard bragging at a roadside bar about their crime. Tonya’s distraught and outraged father, Carl Lee Hailey, consults his friend Jake Brigance, a white attorney who had previously represented Hailey’s brother, on whether he could get himself acquitted if he killed the two men. Jake tells Carl Lee not to do anything stupid, but admits that if it had been his daughter, he would kill the rapists. Carl Lee is determined to avenge Tonya, and while Pete and Billy Ray are being led into holding after their bond hearing, he kills both men with an M16 rifle.
Carl Lee is charged with capital murder. Despite efforts to persuade Carl Lee to retain high-powered attorneys, he elects to be represented by Jake. Helping Jake are two loyal friends, disbarred attorney and mentor Lucien Wilbanks, and sleazy divorce lawyer Harry Rex Vonner. Later, the team is assisted by liberal law student Ellen Roark, who has prior experience with death penalty cases and offers her services as a temporary clerk pro bono. Ellen appears to be interested in Jake romantically, but the married Jake resists her overtures. The team also receives some illicit behind-the-scenes help from black county sheriff Ozzie Walls, a figure beloved by the black community and also well respected by the white community who upholds the law by arresting Carl Lee but, as the father of two daughters of his own, privately supports Carl Lee and gives him special treatment while in jail and goes out of the way to assist Jake in any way he legally can. Carl Lee is prosecuted by Ford County’s district attorney, Rufus Buckley, who hopes that the case will boost his political career. It is claimed that the judge presiding over Carl Lee’s trial, Omar “Ichabod” Noose, has been intimidated by local white supremacist elements. Noose refuses Jake’s request for a change of venue, even though the racial make-up of Ford County virtually guarantees an all-white jury, which later becomes the case.
Billy Ray’s brother, Freddy, seeks revenge against Carl Lee, enlisting the help of the Mississippi branch of the Ku Klux Klan and its Grand Dragon, Stump Sisson. Subsequently, the KKK attempts to plant a bomb beneath Jake’s porch, leading him to send his wife and daughter out of town until the trial is over. Later, the KKK attacks Jake’s secretary, Ethel Twitty, and kills her frail husband, Bud. They also burn crosses in the yards of potential jurors to intimidate them. On the day the trial begins, a riot erupts between the KKK and the area’s black residents outside the courthouse; Stump is killed by a molotov cocktail. Believing that the black people are at fault for Stump’s death, the KKK increase their attacks.As a result, the National Guard is called to Clanton to keep the peace during Carl Lee’s trial. The KKK shoots at Jake one morning as he is being escorted into the courthouse, missing Jake but seriously wounding one of the guardsmen assigned to protect him. Soon after, Ellen Roark is abducted and assaulted. They burn down Jake’s house. During trial deliberations, the jury’s spokesman is threatened by a KKK member with a knife. Eventually, they torture and murder “Mickey Mouse”, one of Jake’s former clients who had infiltrated the KKK and subsequently gave anonymous tips to the police, allowing them to anticipate most KKK attacks.
Despite the loss of his house and several setbacks at the start of the trial, Jake perseveres. He badly discredits the state’s psychiatrist by establishing that he has never conceded to the insanity of any defendant in any criminal case in which he has been asked to testify, even when several other doctors have been in consensus otherwise. He traps the doctor with a revelation that several previous defendants found insane in their trials are currently under his care despite his having testified to their “sanity” in their respective trials. Jake follows this up with a captivating closing statement.
On the day of the verdict, tens of thousands of black citizens gather in town and demand Carl Lee’s acquittal. The unanimous acquittal by reason of temporary insanity is only achieved when one of the jurors asks the others to seriously imagine that Carl Lee and his daughter were white and that the murdered rapists were black. Carl Lee returns to his family and the story ends with Jake, Lucien and Harry Rex having a celebratory drink before Jake holds a press conference and leaving town to reunite with his family.
Read more: A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance Book 1) [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#6 The Guardians by John Grisham
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A classic legal thriller—with a twist. • “A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.” —Associated Press
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.
Editorial Reviews
- “Terrific…affecting…Grisham has done it again. Such creative longevity is not that unusual in the suspense genre, but what is rare is Grisham’s feat of keeping up the pace of producing, on average, a novel a year without a notable diminishment of ingenuity or literary quality.”—Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post
- “Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice. The Guardian team of characters is first-rate.”– Associated Press
- “With his début, 1989’s A Time to Kill, Grisham established himself as a skilled storyteller, a writer who can nimbly portray complex characters who overcome their fears and flaws to pursue justice. Thirty years later, his authorial prowess glows again in this riveting tale.”—Fredericksburg Free Lance Star
- “[Grisham] has created a powerful no-nonsense protagonist that you cannot help rooting for in a story stocked with tension and flavor that will have you flipping the pages to a very satisfying ending.”—Florida Times-Union
- “Grisham’s colorful prose is riveting, and the issue is a timely one that can be too easily overlooked…His fictional legal happenings convey a loud and clear ring of veracity.”–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- “The Guardians, the newest legal thriller from John Grisham, a true wizard of the form, is certainly not going to disappoint. Fans of the author are going to find it wholly satisfying.”–Anniston Star
#7 Camino Island by John Grisham
Camino Island is a crime fiction thriller novel written by John Grisham and released on June 6, 2017, by Doubleday. The book is a departure from Grisham’s main subject of legal thrillers and focuses on stolen rare books. Grisham made his first extensive book tour in 25 years to publicize the book.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A delightfully lighthearted caper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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.
Plot
The book begins with the theft of five rare F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from the Firestone Library at Princeton University and then embarks on a journey to a resort town on a Florida island in search of clues about the heist. Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an “underground agency” of investigators working for Princeton’s insurance company pursue the perpetrators in the black market, the story focuses on a novelist who becomes involved in the search and pursues an investigation of the heist.
Editorial Reviews
- “A delightfully lighthearted caper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- “A happy lark [that] provides the pleasure of a leisurely jaunt periodically jolted into high gear, just for the fun and speed of it.”—The New York Times Book Review
- “Sheer catnip . . . [Grisham] reveals an amiable, sardonic edge here that makes Camino Island a most agreeable summer destination.”—USA Today
- “Fans will thrill with the classic chase and satisfying ending; and book lovers will wallow in ecstasy.”—The Florida Times-Union
#8 Witness to a Trial: A Short Story Prequel to The Whistler by John Grisham
“Witness to a Trial” A startling and original courtroom drama from New York Times #1 Best Seller John Grisham that is the prequel to his newest legal thriller, The Whistler. An Original E-Short.
- 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.
Read more: Witness to a Trial: A Short Story Prequel to The Whistler [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#9 The Racketeer by John Grisham
The Racketeer is a legal thriller novel written by John Grisham that was released on October 23, 2012 by Doubleday with an initial printing of 1.5 million copies. It was one of the best selling books of 2012 and spent several weeks atop various best seller lists.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Racketeer is guilty of only one thing: keeping us engaged until the very last page.”—USA Today •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.
Plot
Malcolm Bannister is an African American attorney in a small-town Virginia law firm. A real estate transaction which he undertook in good faith turns out to have involved the purchase of a secluded hunting lodge where a crooked Capitol Hill lobbyist invited corrupt Congressmen for debaucherous orgies with underage girls. After being caught up in a large FBI sweep, Bannister is tried and convicted of racketeering despite his protestations of innocence. The story begins with Bannister halfway through his ten-year prison term; he has since been disbarred, divorced by his wife, lost contact with his son and is nursing a bitter grudge against the federal government and the FBI.
After hearing of the brutal murders of federal judge Raymond Fawcett and his mistress, Bannister makes a deal with the FBI to give them the name of the killer, in exchange for his release and being put into the Witness Protection Program, supposedly to protect him from the killer’s associates. He informs them that Quinn Rucker, a drug dealer he met in prison, had vowed to escape and murder Fawcett as revenge for a failed bribery attempt in which the judge took $500,000 but didn’t follow through on his end of the deal. Acting on information from Bannister, the FBI arrest Quinn and, despite having no evidence against him, manipulate him into confessing to the murder using legal interrogation tactics. Following the indictment, Quinn claims to have been unlawfully coerced into the confession.
Bannister is released and given a new face and identity: Max Reed Baldwin. After the FBI discovers that Rucker’s gang knows Bannister’s whereabouts and is seeking revenge, he leaves the program and goes off the radar. He sets up a fake film company and meets another man he had met in prison, Nathan Cooley, who doesn’t recognize him. Bannister convinces Cooley to take part in the filming of a documentary about corruption in the FBI and the DEA. He rents a private plane, ostensibly to fly the two to Florida, but drugs Cooley during the flight and has the plane fly to Jamaica, framing him for drug smuggling and gun running in the process. As the only white inmate in a jail where all other prisoners and the guards are black, Cooley finds himself the subject of vicious bullying.
Bannister tells Cooley that it was Jamaican officials who framed him, and are demanding $500,000 for his release. Cooley tells Bannister of a secret stash of gold worth $8.5 million hidden in his backyard, which Bannister arranges for Vanessa, his lover and accomplice, to steal, before he returns to the US. After the two of them hide the gold in a series of safety deposit boxes, Vanessa – in reality Quinn’s sister – reveals to Quinn’s lawyer that her brother has an alibi for the time of Fawcett’s murder. The FBI, after receiving an email about the gold from Bannister, realize that he and Quinn have been working together; Quinn’s arrest and indictment was all part of a plan to enable Bannister to leave prison and take the gold from Fawcett’s killer, before clearing Quinn’s name.
In exchange for immunity for both himself and Quinn, Bannister reveals to the FBI that Cooley is Fawcett’s real killer. Before he was imprisoned, Cooley discovered the gold – which Fawcett had taken from a mining company in exchange for a favorable ruling giving them permission to mine uranium – and told Bannister about his plans to steal it while in prison in an attempt to convince the attorney to get him an early release. Bannister promises to send a bar of gold with Cooley’s fingerprints to the FBI as proof of his guilt, while also anticipating that Cooley will make a full confession to the murder in order to get out of Jamaica. Bannister warns the FBI to investigate the bribery that took place between Judge Fawcett and the mining company, or he will give the story to the press. The novel ends with Bannister, Vanessa, Quinn – revealed to be Bannister’s best friend – and Quinn’s brother Dee Ray celebrating in Antigua with all the gold.
#10 Gray Mountain by John Grisham
Gray Mountain is a legal thriller novel by John Grisham, published in hardcover on October 23, 2014. The book is set in Appalachia after the Great Recession and follows third-year associate Samantha Kofer after the Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, when she becomes a legal clinic intern in Virginia’s coal mining country.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham has a new hero … and she’s full of surprises.
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.
Plot
Samantha Kofer is a lawyer at a major New York City law firm, which is hit hard at the onset of the Great Recession. Rather than lay her off, the firm suggests that Sam conduct a charity service while she is put on furlough for a year. Sam takes up on the offer since she has no other choice and relocates to Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains. She finds a job with a woman named Mattie, who runs a legal aid firm in the town of Brady. Mattie and another woman, Annette, take up cases in the town. At first, Sam does not fit in, but eventually warms up to Mattie and the townspeople.
Sam eventually meets Mattie’s nephew, Donovan Gray. Donovan fills in that he and his firm have been battling against the strip-coal mining businesses in the town. Several employees of the coal mines work themselves until they are sick and the businesses have cut corners on safety measures, resulting in a few deaths. The coal mining has also contaminated the town’s water supply.
Sam meets Donovan’s brother Jeff, who acquired some important documents from the coal businesses, showing that the companies’ owners deliberately allowed the sludge from the mines to runoff into the rivers. Donovan intends to sue the companies, but he is killed in a mysterious plane crash. Jeff is convinced that the coal mine owners sabotaged Donovan’s plane in order to keep the evidence from leaking out.
Editorial Reviews
- “An important new novel . . . Grisham’s work—always superior entertainment—is evolving into something more serious, more powerful, more worthy of his exceptional talent.” —Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
- “John Grisham makes a powerful closing argument against Big Coal, but the message never obscures a satisfying, old fashioned, good guy-bad guy legal thriller.” —Christian Science Monitor
- “Grisham has written one of his best legal dramas in quite some time with this dive into small-town politics. There’s a mystery, but that’s a minor portion of the story. The main thrust that will engage readers is Samantha Kofer and the cast of characters that help her discover her passion.” —Associated Press
#11 Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
Rogue Lawyer is a novel by John Grisham. It was released in hardcover, large print paperback, e-book, compact disc audiobook and downloadable audiobook on October 20, 2015. It is a legal thriller about unconventional street lawyer Sebastian Rudd. In November 2015, the novel was at the top of the New York Times Fiction Best Seller for two weeks. The name “Max Mancini”, Rudd’s City Attorney adversary in the story, was chosen as a result of a fund-raising auction for the charity Reprieve.
The February 4, 2016 reading of the book was the final book read on The Radio Reader before the May 5 death of host Dick Estell.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Featuring one of John Grisham’s most colorful, outrageous, and vividly drawn characters yet, Rogue Lawyer showcases the master of the legal thriller at his very best.
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.
Plot
Sebastian Rudd is a street lawyer, but not your typical street lawyer. His office is a black 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 used to be his client, and who also happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, golf caddie, and his only friend. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. His beautiful ex-wife is a lawyer too, and she left him for another woman while still they were married. He only gets to see his son for 36 hours per month and his ex-wife wants to stop all visits. He defends people other lawyers won’t go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult who is (falsely) accused of murdering two girls; a vicious crime lord on death row who ends up escaping before Rudd’s eyes; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house, and killed his wife and dogs; a Mixed martial arts fighter previously financed by Rudd who killed a referee after losing a fight. In between these adventures, he’s contacted by a serial kidnapper and killer who’s involved in human trafficking, and knows the whereabouts of the assistant chief of police’s missing daughter.
Editorial Reviews
- “Terrific…Grisham, can still devise distinctive characters, tricky legal predicaments and rogueishly cheating ways to worm out of them.” —Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post
- “Sebastian Rudd is a kind of social justice warrior and Grisham uses him to take jabs at the legal system…all with a blunt, rude, gravelly poetic wise guy voice that makes Rudd come across as a kind of 21st-century Philip Marlowe.” —Benjamin Percy, The New York Times Book Review
Read more: Rogue Lawyer [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#12 The Broker by John Grisham
The Broker is a suspense novel written by American author John Grisham and published in the United States on January 11, 2005. The novel follows the story of Joel Backman, a newly pardoned prisoner who had tried to broker a deal to sell the world’s most powerful satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder.
Plot
Joel Backman is “the Broker,” considered to be one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, D.C. However, Backman’s life falls apart when a deal collapses involving a hacked spy satellite that nobody knows about, and he ends up in jail. Six years later, the political wheels have turned and other power-hungry men are eager for Backman’s blood. Bargains are made, and after an outgoing disgraced President grants him a full pardon at the behest of the CIA, Backman finds himself spirited out of the prison in the middle of the night, bundled onto a military plane, and flown to Italy to begin a new life. He has a new name and mysterious new “friends” who teach him to speak the language and to blend in with the people in Bologna.
However, Backman soon realizes that something is not quite kosher in this new setup, in that he is under constant surveillance. In reality, the CIA is setting him up for professional assassins from China, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries. They intend to sit back and wait to see who kills him in an effort to solve the biggest mystery to hit the US government in decades: the question of who built this seemingly impenetrable and most advanced satellite ever. It turns out to be China; despite having low satellite technology, they stole the information from the US.
Backman barely survives several assassination attempts and manages to establish communication with his son, Neal. He escapes surveillance and returns to his home to contract a new deal with the US government. The CIA is told about the satellite, along with the taking of the satellite’s program. In return, they agree to do what they can to get the countries targeting him to back off, though they caution him that some of them will not listen. Backman then covers his escape by pretending that he is resuming his old life, then quietly disappears and presumably returns to Italy.
Editorial Reviews
- “Most and best of all, it’s Grisham living up to his reputation as a great storyteller.”—Entertainment Weekly
- “A fast-paced, fun read with echoes of something deeper. The author’s command of pop fiction delivers crisp, sharp prose.”—The Boston Globe
- “[Grisham] is exceptionally good at what he does. . . . Indeed, right now in this country, nobody does it better.”—The Washington Post
- “Where Grisham leads, millions of readers follow.”—New York Daily News
Read more: The Broker [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#13 The Reckoning by John Grisham
The Reckoning is a best-selling novel by John Grisham. In addition to Grisham’s typical legal thriller, the book was also characterized by reviewers as “a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, a family saga, a coming-of-age story”, “a period piece”, and a war novel.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham’s most powerful, surprising, and suspenseful thriller yet • “A murder mystery, a courtroom drama, a family saga.” —USA Today
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.
Reminiscent of the finest tradition of Southern Gothic storytelling, The Reckoning would not be complete without Grisham’s signature layers of legal suspense, and he delivers on every page.
Plot
The plot centers on the 1946 murder trial of prominent family patriarch Pete Banning, a war hero who has returned home from the Second World War.
The story takes place in the fictional town of Clanton, Mississippi, in Grisham’s Ford County. It is the seventh Grisham novel to take place here, following A Time to Kill, The Summons, The Chamber, The Last Juror, Sycamore Row, and A Time for Mercy.
Pete Banning comes from a family that has farmed cotton for generations. He is owner of a 640-acre parcel in northern Mississippi. In Part One, “The Killing,” Pete’s wife Liza has recently been placed in a mental institution; his children Joel and Stella are college students; and his sister Florry is a would-be writer who lives on an adjacent parcel. One morning, Pete rises and decides that today is the day for an act of killing. He goes about his normal activities before heading into town, where he walks in on Dexter Bell, the pastor of the local Methodist church, and draws a gun. The pastor exclaims, “If it’s about Liza, I can explain.” Pete shoots Bell three times, killing him.
Pete makes no secret of what he has done and the town is aghast. Sheriff Nix Gridley drives out to the Banning farm, arrests Pete and jails him without resistance. To all inquiries about his actions, Pete replies, “I have nothing to say.” His children are instructed to stay away from Clanton. The pastor’s widow, Jackie Bell, takes her three children to her hometown in Georgia.
After some internal friction, a grand jury returns an indictment of first degree murder. Banning family attorney John Wilbanks attempts to construct a defense but Pete refuses to allow a request for change of venue or preparation for a plea of temporary insanity. Joel and Stella attempt to visit their mother at the State Hospital, but are denied access per instructions from Pete. Pete’s trial is brief. The DA makes a straightforward case that is not refuted in any way by Wilbanks, at Banning’s insistence. The jury returns a verdict of guilty with a sentence of death by electrocution. Pete is allowed to visit Liza at the State Hospital, where she says, “Can you forgive me?” He says he cannot but that he continues to love her. On the day of Banning’s scheduled execution, the governor of Mississippi meets privately with Banning and offers to commute the sentence to life imprisonment if Banning will state a reason for having committed the murder. He again replies that he has nothing to say. The execution is carried out in the Clanton courthouse and Banning is buried the next day.
Part Two, “The Boneyard,” an extended flashback, begins in 1925 with Pete as a new West Point graduate who meets 18-year-old Liza at a debutante ball in Memphis. After a brief and passionate romance, they elope and marry. After the deaths of Pete’s parents in the early 1930s, Pete leaves the active military, enters the reserves and the couple moves to the cotton farm. After a few difficult years, the farm returns to profitability. Pete is recalled to active military duty in 1939. He ends up in the Philippines, where U.S. forces surrender to the Japanese in April 1942. On the death march to a prisoner of war camp, Pete is knocked unconscious, falls into a ditch and is presumed dead by fellow prisoners. However, he survives, rejoins the march and is imprisoned under brutal conditions. Two months later, word reaches the farm that he is missing and presumed dead. Later in 1942, as Pete is being transferred by ship to a slave labor camp in Japan, he escapes when the ship is torpedoed. A letter to Liza providing his status is ripped up by sympathetic Filipinos who are afraid of reprisal if found in possession of the letter.
Pete and fellow U.S. soldier Clay Wampler join a guerilla force in the Philippine mountains and mount numerous effective attacks on Japanese personnel, vehicles and planes. In late 1944, U.S. forces begin the liberation of the Philippines. Pete is rescued in early 1945 and returns to the U.S. for treatment in a San Francisco military hospital. Liza receives a call from him and, after recovering from her shock, she rushes to San Francisco for a joyous reunion. In May 1945, he returns to Mississippi.
In Part Three, “The Betrayal,” the story line of Part One is resumed. Joel becomes the legally appointed guardian of his mother. He and Stella begin visiting her periodically. Errol McLeish, a Georgia lawyer who has befriended Jackie Bell, associates Mississippi lawyer Burch Dunlap as counsel to represent her in a wrongful death suit against the Banning estate. As a lengthy sequence of legal issues is worked out, Joel and Stella make fitful progress on bringing stability back into their lives, with Joel in law school at Mississippi and Stella working as a teacher with an eye on New York. Liza escapes from the State Hospital, returns home, has a long talk with Florry, goes to the cemetery and commits suicide lying atop Pete’s grave. The Jackie Bell lawsuits prevail despite appeals and other delaying tactics, resulting in all of the Pete Banning property going to Bell, who has married McLeish.
Climatic Ending – Spoiler Alert Florry is living with a friend in New Orleans and in failing health. Joel and Stella go for a final visit. On her deathbed, Florry tells the story of how Liza, thinking Pete was dead in the Philippines, had an impromptu sexual relationship with Jupe, grandson of two elderly employees on the Banning family farm who were descended from slaves. Liza became pregnant and was taken to Memphis by Dexter Bell for an abortion. She was left with a persistent infection that caused her to lose interest in resuming the hitherto vigorous sexual relationship with Pete upon his return from the war. Pete ultimately confronted her with evidence of the abortion. Liza, unable to admit to a sexual relationship with a young black man, told Pete that Dexter was the father. Stunned, Joel says “So I guess Pete killed the wrong man, right, Florry?” and walks out.
After mulling over the mess, Joel understands why all the people did what they did, but wishes he were still ignorant. When Stella joins him, they agree that the two of them will stick together and never return to Clanton.
“What a family,” he says, as Stella weeps.
#14 The Rooster Bar by John Grisham
The Rooster Bar is the 25th legal thriller novel by John Grisham. Grisham was inspired to create the story after reading an article titled “The Law-School Scam” that appeared in The Atlantic magazine in 2014.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham’s newest legal thriller takes you inside a law firm that’s on shaky ground.
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 …
Pull up a stool, grab a cold one, and get ready to spend some time at The Rooster Bar.
Plot
Three third-year law students – Mark Frazier, Todd Lucero, and Zola Maal – all attend Foggy Bottom Law School (FBLS), a third-tier D.C. establishment with a reputation as a diploma mill. Zola contacts Mark and Todd when her boyfriend, Gordon Tanner, stops taking medication for his worsening bipolar disorder. They discover that Gordon, in his mania, has been collecting evidence that Hinds Rackley, the investor who owns FBLS, runs a network of schools, law firms and banks which ensures that FBLS’ students are stuck in a cycle of debt while Rackley makes millions in the process. Although this practice isn’t illegal, Gordon is convinced that there’s enough for a class-action lawsuit that would, at the very least, expose Rackley’s fraud. Later that night, Gordon gets drunk and flees the apartment, getting arrested for DUI. The trio bail him out with the help of Darrell Crowley, a professional street lawyer, and Mark tries to find Gordon’s doctor. Before he can, however, Gordon escapes again and commits suicide by jumping off a bridge.
Distraught, and blamed for Gordon’s death by his family and friends, Mark and Todd realize that they have no future at FBLS; Mark’s promised job at a D.C. firm is withdrawn, and both he and Todd drop out. The two get jobs at The Rooster Bar, a pub owned by Todd’s boss Maynard. Mark persuades him to lease the two some office space, and they, together with Zola, set up an unlicensed firm called Upshaw, Parker, and Lane (UPL). Inspired by Crowley, Mark and Todd decide to pose as lawyers under assumed identities and work the D.C. courts for clients, arguing to Zola that they can get rich while avoiding FBLS and their creditors, so long as no one discovers that they are engaged in a criminal enterprise. Uncertain, but aware that she also has nothing better to look forward to, Zola agrees to join them.
The firm is initially a success, with Mark and Todd winning several victories and collecting payouts while Zola attempts to expand their practice into personal injury, an area that none of them have any real expertise in. Seeking a quick payday, Mark agrees to file a lawsuit on behalf of Ramon Taper, a man whose infant son died due to negligence at the hospital where he was born. An expert assures Mark that his case is sound, and he refers it to another lawyer, Jeffrey Corbett, who informs Mark that he’s been deceived: the statute of limitations on the case ran out while he was preparing it, meaning he and UPL could now be sued for legal malpractice by their client. With no other way out, Mark reluctantly informs Edwin Mossberg, the lawyer for Ramon’s ex-wife, that he is not a lawyer and would therefore be ruined if the case were to proceed. Mossberg agrees to drop it, but passes the information along to the D.C. bar. Meanwhile, Ramon, furious that Mark has stopped taking his calls, gets a new attorney: Crowley.
Mark, Todd, and Zola decide to focus their efforts on Swift Bank, one of Rackley’s outfits, which will soon have to pay billions in settlements over charges that it defrauded its customers. By inventing thousands of fake clients and forwarding them to different firms involved in the settlement, the three bet that they can make enough money to flee the country, just as the bar’s investigation heats up. Maynard fires Mark and Todd to protect himself, and the police arrest them for practicing without licenses, though they are allowed to go free so long as they stay in town. In the middle of it all, Zola is forced to travel to Senegal after her immigrant parents are extorted by corrupt officials. Using $26,000 from UPL’s account provided by Mark and Todd, she is able to hire a well-connected lawyer, Idina Sanga, who gets them released from custody. At the same time, Mark and Todd blackmail Rackley with Gordon’s evidence to stop dragging his feet on the settlements. At Mark and Todd’s trial, Crowley, Ramon, and many of their former clients cause a scene when they reveal the extent of UPL’s misconduct.
Setting up a hedge fund in the Caribbean to handle their finances, Mark and Todd obtain fake passports and leave the US just as evidence of their fraud allows Rackley to force a temporary halt to the settlements, but not before enough money is transferred to the fund to allow them to reunite with Zola in Senegal. With news that a grand jury has indicted all three on racketeering charges, Mark cuts several checks to pay off their law school debts as well as take care of their families. Knowing that they will never be able to return home, they assume false identities and purchase a bar to run, which they name The Rooster Bar.
#15 Fetching Raymond: A Story from the Ford County Collection by John Grisham
“Fetching Raymond: A Story from the Ford County Collection” A riveting story of suspense from John Grisham’s #1 New York Times bestseller, Ford County—now available as a standalone eBook short
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.
Includes an excerpt from John Grisham’s classic thriller, A Time to Kill
Editorial Reviews
Praise for John Grisham and Ford County
- “Grisham is an absolute master.”—The Washington Post
- “Ford County is the best writing John Grisham has ever done.”—Pat Conroy
- “Sharp, lean [tales] . . . full of tacit suspense . . . Grisham knows how to make himself eminently readable.”—The New York Times Book Review
- “Grisham shows off his literary chops: He can do wry, emotional, funny, serious.”—USA Today
- “Intrigue and sorrow fuel these fine tales. . . . Each wins you over in surprising ways.”—People
- “Never let it be said this man doesn’t know how to spin a good yarn.”—Entertainment Weekly
- “Grisham may well be the best American storyteller writing today.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Read more: Fetching Raymond: A Story from the Ford County Collection [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#16 The Litigators by John Grisham
The Litigators is a 2011 legal thriller novel by John Grisham, his 25th fiction novel overall. The Litigators is about a two-partner Chicago law firm attempting to strike it rich in a class action lawsuit over a cholesterol reduction drug by a major pharmaceutical drug company. The protagonist is a Harvard Law School grad big law firm burnout who stumbles upon the boutique and joins it only to find himself litigating against his old law firm in this case. The book is regarded as more humorous than most of Grisham’s prior novels.
The theme of a young lawyer being fed up with a giant law firm and bolting away to a less lucrative but more satisfying career is shared with The Associate. The theme of a lawsuit against a giant corporation appeared in The Runaway Jury, but in the present book, the corporation is vindicated and proven to have been unjustly maligned (at least on the specific drug which is the subject of the lawsuit) and the mass tort lawyers are seen as greedy and unscrupulous, ultimately bolting and leaving the protagonist’s tiny Chicago firm in the lurch.
Critical reviews were mixed for the book, with several opinions noting a lack of suspense. Nonetheless, the book has achieved both hardcover and ebook #1 best seller status on various lists, including both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. However, since some services do not separate fiction and non-fiction books, it did not debut as a #1 bestseller on certain lists, such as the USA Today. Some reviewers noted that this story would lend itself to an adapted screenplay.
And it is.
The Litigators is a tremendously entertaining romp, filled with the kind of courtroom strategies, theatrics, and suspense that have made John Grisham America’s favorite storyteller.
Plot
Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are ambulance chasers at a small law firm in the South Side of Chicago. Their constant bickering is often mediated by Rochelle, their highly competent African-American secretary. Meanwhile, David Zinc, a Harvard Law School graduate, is completely fed up with the grinding and dehumanizing – though well-paid – life of an associate in the high-powered law firm of Rogan Rothberg. David suddenly breaks away, goes on a drinking binge and by chance finds himself at the Finley & Figg office, where he willingly relegates himself to working for the two disreputable street lawyers.
Wally gets involved in a new scheme, finding claimants for a federal class action lawsuit against Krayoxx, a cholesterol-lowering drug developed by the fictional pharmaceutical company Varrick Labs. Users across the country, both dead and alive, appear to have developed toxic reactions to the drug. Though the firm is out of its depth, Wally gains the assurance of a South Florida lawyer, Jerry Alisandros, that Alisandros will handle the case and reach an out-of-court settlement, and everybody will get rich. However, complications that no one anticipated arise, including Varrick’s hiring of Nadine Karros, Rogan Rothberg’s ace litigator who never loses a case, and the growing evidence that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Krayoxx. The drug works as advertised, has no ill effects, and is unjustly maligned. Varrick pushes to have the case tried in the jurisdiction of Chicago federal judge Harry Seawright, with whom Rogan Rothberg has ties. The case is expedited on Seawright’s docket, with Finley & Figg’s claim singled out of the tort claimants. Alisandros pulls out as co-counsel, leaving Finley & Figg to litigate the case themselves. The resulting trial brings the firm’s usual cast of shady witnesses to the stand in a desperate attempt to get through the trial and avoid being sued for legal malpractice and saddled with frivolous lawsuit sanctions.
In a subsidiary plot, David Zinc stumbles on a lead poisoning brain damage case involving the child of Burmese immigrants. His efforts to identify the American company which imported the child’s toxic toys from China, and reach a settlement with the importer, help him survive the demise of Finley & Figg and open his own successful law firm with Rochelle as his legal secretary.
Critical review
The Litigators is said to be “an amusing and appalling look into the machinations of a nationwide class-action suit,” according to Tobin Harshaw of Bloomberg L.P. The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher John Farley noted that the book is lighter than Grisham’s other works. Publishers Weekly called it a “bitingly farcical look at lawyers at the bottom of the food chain”. CNN described the book as an original perspective of “the best and worst the American system of justice has to offer”. Louis Bayard of The Washington Post, who described himself as someone who abandoned Grisham after his first three novels, noted that this book might be a good starting point for those who have tired of Grisham. Andrea Simakis of The Plain Dealer describes the book as a “heartier meal” than Grisham’s usual “potato-chip fiction”. Publishers Weekly also notes that the fairy tale ending is not really in keeping with the introduction’s dark humor. Rick Arthur of The United Arab Emirates publication The National describes the book unfavorably as a cross between prior Grisham works The Street Lawyer and The King of Torts and similarly describes the protagonist unfavorably to those of The Firm and The Rainmaker.
The book has been derided for its lack of suspense. Carol Memmott of USA Today says that Grisham’s latest attempt to capture the spirit of the legal David and Goliath story is missing “the ratcheting-up of suspense” that he has employed successfully in recent adult and youth novels. Harshaw claims that the book is lacking in the suspense that made The Firm so successful. Arthur finds elements of the plot implausible and the story unsuspenseful as well as unsatisfying. Although the book is somewhat predictable, Bayard notes that “Grisham swerves clear of the usual melodramatic devices. Corporations aren’t intrinsically venal; plaintiffs aren’t lambent with goodness. And best of all, no one is murdered for stumbling Too Close to the Truth.”
Some sources noted that the book has potential to become an adapted screenplay. Irish Independent describes Grisham’s new book as “following his usual route to the bestsellers list” and projects it as a candidate to be his next Hollywood film. Although it is standard Grisham fare, Independent noted that it provides the usual thrills in Grisham’s comfortable legal world and should be a gripping read for his usual fans. The Sunday Express noted that the book could be readily converted to a screenplay, but its critic, Robin Callender Smith, viewed the “ambulance chasing” ethos as a foreign thing that Brits might have to worry about in the near future.
Simakis praised the book for having more depth of character than Grisham’s novels customarily do. She compares the protagonist to Mitch McDeere from The Firm and Rudy Baylor from The Rainmaker. Memmott says that most of the claimants that they find are unsympathetic, but a few are from somewhat sympathetic immigrant families. Simakis notes that Wally trades sex for legal services with one claimant. Harshaw says that the book is a bit sentimental and comparatively lacking in terms of secondary character development for Grisham. Larry Orenstein of Canada’s The Globe and Mail notes that on the dramatic scale this book has instances of laugh out loud humor that make it more like Boston Legal than The Practice, which Boston Legal was spun off from.
#17 The Testament by John Grisham
The Testament is an adventure story by American author John Grisham. It was published in hardcover by Doubleday on February 2, 1999.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
Nate O’Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who’s lived too hard, too fast, for too long. His second marriage in a shambles, and he is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab armed with little more than his fragile sobriety, good intentions, and resilient sense of humor. Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it’s going to be murder.
Rachel Lane is a young woman who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trappings and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil.
In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure, their lives are forever altered by the startling secret of The Testament.
Plot
So, this story is about, An American billionaire named Troy Phelan. He’s an 80years old man with three divorced wives and six heirs. Troy suffered from his illness so he decided to commit a suicide ( he’s kinda crazy man). After his death, all his heirs and his wives wanted to read his will, his testament, (I know you’re thinking about all his money and his lucky heirs but you have to read till the end!!) And all his money was left to his Illegitimate Daughter (Rachel Lane) I told you he’s a crazy man but wise at the same time.
Rachel Lane is a missionary of world’s tribes, she lives in somewhere in Brazil with the Indians, she knew just a little about her biological father.
Troy’s lawyer decided to find Rachel and inform her about her father and his will, but he couldn’t risk his life in the third world, so he sent his an old friend (Nate O’reily) to find Rachel.
Will Nate find Rachel in a middle of nowhere? And will Rachel Accept this will?
#18 The Summons by John Grisham
The Summons is a legal thriller novel by noted American author John Grisham which was released in February 2002.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
Plot
The main character, Ray Atlee, is a law professor with a good salary at the University of Virginia. He has a brother, Forrest, and a father, known to many as Judge Reuben V. Atlee. Ray is sent to his father’s house in Clanton, Mississippi, to discuss issues regarding the old man’s will and estate. To do this, Ray has to go to fictional Ford County, Mississippi, the setting for four of John Grisham’s other books including A Time To Kill. When he finds his father dead in the study, Ray discovers a sum of over $3 million in the house, money which is not part of Judge Atlee’s will. Ray immediately thinks the money is “dirty” because his father could not possibly have made so much money in his career.
Assuming that he is the only one who knows about the money, Ray decides to take it without making it officially part of the estate, and does not tell anyone about it: he knows that if he made it a part of the estate, taxes would take most of the money. But later reality proves otherwise. Ray is being followed; someone else knows about the money. After his own investigations into the roots of the money and the identity of his shadow—including trips to casinos and shady meetings with prominent southern lawyers—he eventually discovers that Forrest has the money. He finds Forrest in a drug rehab compound and confronts him. At the end both part, with Forrest telling Ray that he will contact him in a year.
Editorial Reviews
- “The Summons ranks as my absolute favorite in many years…[with] an ending too delicious and morally instructive to give away.”—USA Today
- “Should you answer this summons? You bet.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune
- “Grisham has grown more comfortable with his voice while expanding its range. . . . The Summons is more than a . . . return to form; it marks out the rich literary territory Grisham has begun to occupy.”—Los Angeles Times
- “A master of the legal suspense thriller.”—Richmond-Times Dispatch
- “A pleasure to read…a good yarn.”—The Washington Post
Read more: The Summons [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#19 The Brethren by John Grisham
The Brethren is a legal thriller novel by American author John Grisham, published in 2000.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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.
Plot
The “Brethren” are three former judges who are incarcerated at Trumble, a fictional federal minimum security prison located in northern Florida. The trio embark on a scam to deceive and exploit wealthy closeted gay men. None of them are gay, but they write convincingly as two young vulnerable gay men, developing friendships and then asking for financial help. In some cases, they also try blackmail.
With the help of their lawyer, Trevor Carson, they transfer their ill-gotten money to a secret Bahamian bank account. Carson takes one-third and employs private detectives to investigate the victims of the scam. This takes over from Carson’s normal legal business, which had been making very little money for him.
Meanwhile, Teddy Maynard, the ruthless and soon-to-retire director of the CIA, is orchestrating a scheme to tip the United States presidential election in the favor of Aaron Lake, a hawkish congressman supported by arms manufacturers. However, Lake, who is closeted, is hooked by the unwitting Brethren in their scam. Realizing that Lake stands to be exposed, Maynard scrambles to stop them from finding out the truth. After the Brethren fire Carson, he is killed by CIA agents in the Caribbean.
The CIA plant a man inside Trumble, who tells the Brethren that he knows about the scam. A deal is worked out, money changes hands and the judges are pardoned by the outgoing president at Maynard’s insistence. The judges leave the country and travel to Europe, where they later restart the scam. Meanwhile, Lake is elected and Maynard, eager to finish the cover-up, selects for him a suitable First Lady.
Read more: The Brethren [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
#20 The Appeal by John Grisham
The Appeal is a 2008 novel by John Grisham, his 21st book and his first fictional legal thriller since The Broker was published in 2005. It was published by Doubleday and released in hardcover in the United States on January 29, 2008. A paperback edition was released by Delta Publishing on November 18, 2008.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • “Fascinating … filled with deadly accurate characterizations by an author who knows both the law and politics from the inside.”—Los Angeles Times
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.
The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave readers unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again.
Plot
Mississippi attorneys Wes and Mary Grace Payton have battled New York City-based Krane Chemical in an effort to seek justice for Jeannette Baker, whose husband and son died from carcinogenic pollutants the company knowingly and negligently allowed to seep into their town’s water supply. When the jury awards Baker $3 million in wrongful death damages and $38 million in punitive damages, billionaire stockholder Carl Trudeau vows to do whatever is necessary to overturn their decision and save the company’s stocks.
Since Mississippi Supreme Court justices are elected rather than appointed, Trudeau plots with Barry Rinehart of Troy-Hogan, a shady Boca Raton firm that deals only in judicial elections, to select a candidate who can replace the liberal Sheila McCarthy. Their anointed candidate is Ron Fisk, a lawyer with no political experience or ambitions. He is naïve enough to be impressed by the attention shown him by his backers, and does not question his source of funding or his campaign team’s underhanded tactics. Rinehart also uses Clete Coley, a clownish third party candidate, to draw support away from McCarthy and then cede it to Fisk when he eventually withdraws from the race.
Fisk defeats McCarthy and immediately votes against upholding several large settlements in cases brought before the court on appeal, and the Paytons expect he will do the same when their case comes up for review. What they do not anticipate is Fisk unexpectedly being forced to rethink his stance when his son is critically and injured by a defective product and left permanently impaired by a medical error. The issue of corporate responsibility affects him and his family on a personal level. However, even though Fisk is aware that he has been used and tricked, he ultimately reverts the verdict against Krane, as he acknowledges also that changing positions due to his personal tragedy would be an act more compromising of his judicial integrity. Fisk also refuses to take legal action for what happened to his son due to fears of appearing hypocritical, but confirms a less-important verdict concerning medical neglect, implying his judicial philosophy may yet change over time. Meanwhile, with stocks plummeting after the original verdict and now seeing a resurgence, Trudeau has increased his wealth and grasp of the company substantially by buying shares at a sub-par value.
Read more: The Appeal [Review-Quotes] by John Grisham
Through the above article, we have introduced to you the 20 Best John Grisham Books in 2023. Hope these will be useful references to help you choose more books for yourself! Good luck!
| The above content has been collected from various sources on the internet. Click the Share button to recommend the book to your friends! |
BookQuote.Net Sincerely Introduced!
