I couldn’t have been more than 14 when I first watched The Client. And while the material was far and away beyond my comprehension, I immediately reached for the book.
In it, Grisham spins a yarn about an 11-year-old southern spitfire, Mark Sway, who’s smoking stolen cigarettes with his younger brother Ricky in the woods when they accidentally stumble onto the suicide attempt by mob lawyer Jerome “Romey” Clifford.
In an effort to keep Romey from succeeding, Mark attempts to pull the hose from the tailpipe of the vehicle, but Romey snatches him up and throws him into the car with him. A drunken Romey confesses the secrets of his mob clients to his impressionable young companion before Mark makes his escape. Stumbling out of his vehicle, Romey halfheartedly searches for Mark before putting a gun to his mouth in view of the boys and pulls the trigger.
The story has begun.
With his brother Ricky now catatonic and beholden to mob secrets, Mark becomes aware of the gravity of his situation when he watches a news clip of Romey’s death while at the hospital. He fears the mob suspects Romey shared their secret and has inadvertently turned Mark into their next target. Fearful for his and his family’s lives, Mark manages to retain Regina “Reggie” Love, the nurturing, ethereal recovering alcoholic who agrees to represent him, as US attorney “Reverend” Roy Flotrigg has turned up to investigate.
It’s a high-stakes case. The mob. The south. The lawyers. A kid witness. A single mother. A mother who’s lost it all, but is willing to risk it all for a kid who saw what he shouldn’t have, heard what never should have happened, and what soon becomes a cat-and-mouse chase for revenge and justice.
Needless to say, if this was my introduction to John Grisham, he had me hooked tenfold. After discovering The Client (then re-watching the silver screen version two thousand million times; starring Brad Renfro, Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones and an exceptional top-shelf ensemble cast), I knew I was a Grisham-for-lifer.
And here are my picks for five of the best John Grisham titles.
The Client (1993)
View on Amazon.comThough I should stress that this list is in no particular order, The Client remains my favourite by spades.
It brought me to Grisham and held me there.
A Time To Kill (1989)
View on Amazon.comIn a racially motivated mixture of legal drama and a father vigilante out to claim justice for his young daughter’s brutal attack, it’ll be up to Jake Brigance to defend an African American father against an all-white jury in the deep south, where the prejudice runs deeper.
The book was adapted to film in 1996, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey as the lawyer with the biggest case his career has seen.
The Pelican Brief (1992)
View on Amazon.comLaw student Darby Shaw stumbles onto a buried lede in the assassinations of two Supreme Court justices by an infamous hitman. Through careful cross-examination, the discovery of political scheming and a would-be development across Louisiana that threatens a protected species of pelican, Darby discovers the ties that bind go all the way up to the White House.
She turns to Gray Grantham of the Washington Post as she uncovers the truth before she becomes the next on the hit list.
The book made it to the silver screen in 1993, starring Julia Roberts as law student Darby Shaw and Denzel Washington as Gray Grantham.
Runaway Jury (1996)
View on Amazon.comCeleste Wood’s husband has died of lung cancer, and she’s taking the tobacco company, Pynex, to trial. In this David versus Goliath legal suspense thriller, Nicholas Easter has managed to secure a seat with the jury – and become elected jury foreman.
His partner, Marlee, finagles the defense’s shady jury consultant by dangling a rigged verdict for a proposed price – though her intentions are not what they seem.
In 2003, the book made it to the big screen, starring John Cusack as Nicholas Easter, Rachel Weisz as Marlee, Dustin Hoffman as Wood’s lawyer, and Gene Hackman as jury consultant Rankin Fitch; Hackman’s third turn in a Grisham adaptation.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)
View on Amazon.comIn his first non-fiction novel, John Grisham goes deep into Ada, Oklahoma, where Ronald ‘Ron’ Keith Williamson has been wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in 1988.
The former minor league baseball player was eventually exonerated after serving 11 years on death row when the Innocent Project presented DNA evidence and other materials that saw Ron released in 1999.
Netflix picked up the book as a six-parter doc in 2018.
John Grisham Fast-Facts:
- 37 consecutive #1 best-sellers
- 300 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide
- He was a criminal defense and personal injury lawyer in Southaven, Mississippi.
- The manuscript for A Time to Kill was rejected 28 times (it did so poorly upon release, Grisham actually bought 1000 copies and tried to sell them himself)
- He is a long-standing board member of the Innocence Project.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Care is the Social Media Manager at Book Notification. She is an avid reader/writer, Mama to 3 adult kids, a wedding DJ, and a snob for coffee and pop culture. Her favourite book is Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. She lives in Canada with her husband and record collection.