Best John Grisham Books

Gifting Grisham For Christmas? Here Are His 12 Most Popular Books

John Grisham has has a big year. Not only has Netflix released an adaptation of his 2006 nonfiction bestseller The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, the attorney-turned-novelist is one of Forbes Magazine's highest paid fiction authors of 2018.

During the first decade of his career, Grisham built his success on courtroom dramas, but has since widened his brand to include holiday stories like Skipping Christmas (2001), sports stories such as Playing For Pizza (2007), and teen-focussed fare such as the six-book Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer series. Grisham's most recent work, The Reckoning (2018), is a Southern Gothic tale and marks the 40th entry in a career that is still going strong. So as we wait to see what's on the horizon for Grisham in 2019, let's take a look at his most popular novels to date.

1. A Time to Kill (1988)

The inspiration for Grisham's first novel occurred when he overheard the testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim and decided to explore what would happen if the girl's father murdered the assailants. Several publishers initially rejected the story, but Wynwood Press debuted the novel in June 1988 with a modest 5,000-print run. It wasn't until Grisham sold his second book, The Firm, to Paramount Pictures that A Time to Kill garnered audience attention. Doubleday republished the book in 1989, and the story became a bestseller.

In 1996, director Joel Schumacher brought us Samuel L. Jackson as Carl Lee Hailey, the beleaguered father, and Matthew McConaughey as Jake Tyler Brigance, the story's fearless lawyer. This marks Schumacher's second outing with Grisham's work, as he also directed The Client.

Playwright Rupert Holmes also adapted A Time to Kill for Broadway in 2013 — the same year its sequel, Sycamore Row, hit bookstores.

2. Sycamore Row (2013)

In this sequel to A Time to Kill, Grisham returns to attorney Jake Tyler Brigance three years later to tell the tale of Seth Hubbard, a wealthy lumber magnate who hangs himself from a tree in the wake of a terminal cancer diagnosis. In the moments prior to his death, Seth sends Jake a letter with orders to uphold his will, which has been recently modified to leave nearly $20 million dollars to his housekeeper. Naturally, this causes an uproar in the Hubbard family and culminates in a contestation trial that exposes the community's dark secrets.

3. The Client (1993)

At just 11 years old, Mark Sway witnesses a suicide and learns some information about the mob that puts his family in jeopardy. Wise beyond his years, Mark strikes a deal with a local lawyer to defend him from the smarmy government attorney determined to make Mark talk.

A year after its initial publication, director Joel Schumacher adapted the novel for the big screen with Brad Renfro as young Mark Sway, Susan Sarandon as his lawyer Regina Love, and Tommy Lee Jones as the devious US attorney. Schumacher would later go on to direct another Grisham film adaptation, A Time to Kill.

4. The Pelican Brief (1992)

Two Supreme Court Justices fall prey to a brutal murderer with terrorist aspirations. Political pundits remain baffled but assert the deaths have diplomatic motivations. However, the research of Tulane University law student Darby Shaw proves otherwise, and her legal brief on the case thrust her into a cat and mouse game with the killer.

Alan J. Pakula directed the 1993 film version of this novel with Julia Roberts starring as Darby Shaw and Denzel Washington as a journalist who helps her expose the truth.

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5. The Chamber (1994)

Adam Hall, an inexperienced young lawyer, fights to keep his bigoted grandfather from receiving the death penalty for a racially charged bombing committed during the Civil Rights Movement.

Attorney and writer Polly Nelson sued Grisham in 1995 alleging the work bears resemblance to her nonfiction book Defending the Devil, which chronicles Nelson's experiences representing serial killer Ted Bundy. After a lower court ruled in Grisham's favour, the case was dismissed on appeal in 1997.

Despite the controversy, the novel earned a 1996 big-screen adaptation with Chris O'Donnell cast as Adam and Gene Hackman as his grandfather.

6. The Runaway Jury (1996)

This novel focuses on a high-profile tobacco trial where a juror attempts to manipulate the verdict from the inside while a consultant for the tobacco industry plots to interfere with the jury's outside lives.

In the 2003 film version, John Cusack plays the duplicitous juror and Gene Hackman stars as the shady industry fixer. This was Hackman's third appearance in a John Grisham film adaptation, as he also stars alongside Tom Cruise in The Firm and Chris O'Donnell in The Chamber.

7. The Rainmaker (1995)

When his upscale job opportunity crumbles under the weight of a corporate merger, rookie attorney Rudy Baylor finds himself working for a ruthless ambulance chaser. To earn his keep, Rudy must solicit clients at the local hospital. He soon enlists the parents of a terminally ill leukemia patient struggling with insurance claims only to find himself up against the same firm that destroyed his earlier career aspirations.

A young Matt Damon starred as Rudy Baylor in the 1997 film version. Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, and Danny DeVito rounded out an exceptional cast led by director Francis Ford Coppola.

8. The Partner (1997)

Mississippi lawyer Danilo Silva fakes his own death, steals $90 million, and absconds to Brazil, but he's captured four years later and brought home to dire consequences. Unlike most of Grisham's other novels, this book eschews the chronological narrative structure for a scattershot approach that leaves the audience guessing until the last second.

9. The Testament (1999)

This book employs a trademark Grisham opening — an old billionaire outwits his greedy heirs by signing a questionable will moments before his death — and dovetails into a plot involving a lawyer on a sweeping missionary adventure in Brazil. Although the storylines seem at odds, Grisham juxtaposes the literal jungle with the metaphorical one to illustrate how wealth makes us all animals.

10. The Street Lawyer (1998)

A vagrant enters the offices of a Washington DC law firm and takes several attorneys hostage while demanding information about a mysterious eviction. Although police eventually kill the attacker and free the hostages, one of the firm's lawyers, Michael Brock, becomes intrigued by the homeless man's crusade and investigates further . . . only to find more than he imagined.

11. The Firm (1991)

The bestseller that made John Grisham a household name, this novel tells the tale of an ambitious lawyer who finds himself at the mob's mercy after accepting a job that's too good to be true.

The film rights for the book sold to Paramount Pictures for $600,000 dollars and became the first Grisham novel to hit the big screen. Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman starred in the 1993 film version directed by Sydney Pollack.

12. The Last Juror (2004)

The plot of The Last Juror has three narrative threads. The first covers the trial of Danny Padgitt, a notorious rapist who kills a young widow. The second focuses on Willie Traynor, a struggling journalist accused of using crude and sensationalist tactics in his coverage of the trial. The third storyline unfolds nine years later as Padgitt earns a parole from prison, and the members of his jury are murdered one by one.

Although this novel was published almost two decades after A Time to Kill, the story takes place just a few years before the events of Grisham's debut novel and both feature the characters of Lucien Wilbanks and Harry Rex Vonner.