John Grisham, Author . Doubleday $19.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-385-50583-3
For all its clever curmudgeonly edge and minor charms, no way does this Christmas yarn from Grisham rank with A Christmas Carol, as the publisher claims. Nor does it rank with Grisham's own best work. The premise is terrific, as you'd expect
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John Grisham, Author . Doubleday $27.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-50382-2
Last year's historical family drama A Painted House
and the Christmas satire Skipping Christmas
demonstrated that Grisham is willing to take risks. But fans of his legal thrillers already knew that, with his last three, particularly The...
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John Grisham, Author . Doubleday $19.95 (176p) ISBN 978-0-385-51161-2
Grisham demonstrated he could produce bestsellers without legal aid with The Painted House
and Skipping Christmas,
and he'll undoubtedly do so again with this slight but likable novel of high school football, a legendary coach and the perils...
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John Grisham, Author . Doubleday $27.95 (355p) ISBN 978-0-385-51043-1
Grisham has spent the last few years stretching his creative muscles through a number of genres: his usual legal thrillers (The Summons
, The King of Torts
, etc.), a literary novel (The Painted House
), a Christmas book (Skipping Christmas
) and a...
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John Grisham, Author . Doubleday $27.95 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-51045-5
Readers will find an amiable travelogue to Italy and its charms in Grisham's latest. What they won't find are the suspense and inspired plotting that have made the author (The Last Juror
, etc.) one of the world's bestselling writers....
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $30 (432p) ISBN 978-0-385-41634-4
Grisham's gripping fiction debut describes the inner workings of a law firm set up by the Mafia to launder money and concoct tax evasions. Mitchell McDeere, third in his class at Harvard Law, is wooed relentlessly by the prestigious Memphis tax firm
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $29.95 (496p) ISBN 978-0-385-42472-1
The chamber in question is the gas chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary--and for 69-year-old Sam Crayhall, the road thence has been many years long. Sam was twice tried and twice acquitted for murder after a 1967 Ku Klux Klan scare bombing...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $29.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-385-42473-8
Grisham's intricate, spellbinding sixth novel differs from his last few--it's his only book with first-person narration and his first since his debut to be set in a courtroom--but the trademark Grisham touches are in place. Rookie attorney Rudy...
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John Grisham, Author Dell Publishing $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-385-47294-4
Grisham is either remarkably prescient or just plain lucky; because with public concerns about the tobacco companies heating up, and two major nonfiction books currently garnering a lot of attention, he has come up with a tobacco-suit novel that...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-49099-3
America's most popular author is arguably its most popular crusader as well, tilting his pen against myriad targets, including big law (The Firm, etc.), big tobacco (The Runaway Jury), big insurance (The Rainmaker) and now, in perhaps his sweetest,...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $30 (448p) ISBN 978-0-385-49380-2
A traditional gangbuster Grisham opening--in which an aged billionaire outfoxes his greedy heirs by signing a bombshell will, then jumps to his death--gives little clue how this seductive tale will develop. The novel also features the usual attorney
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $30 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-49746-6
Only a few megaselling authors of popular fiction deviate dramatically from formula--most notably Stephen King but recently Grisham, too. He's serializing a literary novel, A Painted House, in the Oxford American; his last thriller (The Testament)...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $27.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-385-50120-0
Who needs lawyers? Not Grisham, in his captivating new novel, now between hardcovers after serialization in the Oxford American. Here there are hardscrabble farmers instead, and dirt-poor itinerant workers and a seven-year-old boy who grows up fast...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $21.95 (262p) ISBN 978-0-385-52500-8
Third-string Cleveland Browns quarterback Rick Dockery becomes the greatest goat ever by throwing three interceptions in the closing minutes of the AFC championship game. Fleeing vengeful fans, he finds refuge in the grungiest corner of professional
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $24 (308p) ISBN 978-0-385-53245-7
Returning to the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill, longtime bestseller Grisham presents seven short stories about the residents of Ford County, Miss. Each story explores different themes-mourning, revenge, justice, acceptance, evolution-but
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday $27.95 (373p) ISBN 978-0-385-51783-6
Bestseller Grisham's contemporary legal thriller offers an action-and-suspense plot reminiscent of that of his breakout book, 1991's The Firm, in contrast to 2008's didactic The Appeal, which served as a platform for his concerns about the...
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John Grisham, Dutton, $16.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-525-42384-3
Grisham, a bestseller-list fixture with his legal thrillers, makes his children's book debut with a series opener that lacks thrills. The only child of two attorneys, Theo Boone is an endearing oddball, an eighth-grader who still thinks girls have...
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John Grisham, Doubleday, $28.95 (432p) ISBN 9780385528047
Grisham's recent slump continues with another subpar effort whose plot and characters, none of whom are painted in shades of gray, aren't able to support an earnest protest against the death penalty. In 2007, almost on the eve of the execution of...
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John Grisham, Author Dell Publishing Company $7.99 (688p) ISBN 978-0-440-22060-2
Tie-in edition with the forthcoming movie starring Gene Hackman and Faye Dunaway. (Oct)
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John Grisham, Author Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group $7.99 (512p) ISBN 978-0-440-21145-7
A rookie discovers that the prestigious law firm where he works is a front for the Mafia. MC suggests addding some info along the lines of `a surprise bestseller in hardcover...'/i think this is interesting but it goes beyond the specifications laid
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John Grisham, Author Dell Publishing Company $7.99 (448p) ISBN 978-0-440-21404-5
In this tale of the aftermath of the assassinations of two Supreme Court justices, Grisham delivers a suspenseful plot at a breakneck pace, although his characters are stereotypes. The hardcover was on the PW bestseller list 48 weeks and the mass...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday Books $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-385-47512-9
Grisham's intricate, spellbinding sixth novel differs from his last few--it's his only book with first-person narration and his first since his debut to be set in a courtroom--but the trademark Grisham touches are in place. Rookie attorney Rudy...
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John Grisham, Author Doubleday Books $250 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-48592-0
Money is essentially the principal character in Grisham's new thriller. It is a very large sum of it--$90 million, to be exact--that has motivated Gulf Coast lawyer Patrick Lanigan to concoct a scheme to disappear that is even more elaborate (if...
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John Grisham, Author Punto de Lectura $9.99 (0p) ISBN 978-84-663-0592-1
Inspired by the best-selling author's own childhood in rural Arkansas, this 2000 novel tells the story of how a seven-year-old farm boy and his family are changed by a particular cotton harvest.
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-385-53513-7
Grisham's entertaining modern-day legal thriller offers a bitingly farcical look at lawyers at the bottom of the food chain. David Zinc, an associate at a Chicago mega-firm who's sick of the sweatshop he's been laboring in for five years, flees the...
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (352p) ISBN 9780385535144
Bestseller Grisham (The Litigators) is back in top form with this twisty, precisely plotted legal thriller that eschews the civics lessons of some of his more recent work. The masterful opening introduces disgraced Virginia lawyer Malcolm Bannister,
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (464p) ISBN 978-0-385-53713-1
Leave it to Grisham to make a battle about wills nail-bitingly suspenseful in his second novel featuring lawyer Jake Brigance, the hero of Grisham’s debut, A Time to Kill. It’s 1988, and Seth Hubbard, an elderly man dying of cancer, hangs himself...
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-385-53714-8
Expect the expected in this tepid legal thriller from bestseller Grisham (Sycamore Row) that may be the debut of a series character. When Wall Street law associate Samantha Kofer loses her job in the 2008 financial meltdown, her mega-firm offers her
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-53943-2
Sebastian Rudd, the narrator of this uninspired legal thriller from bestseller Grisham (Gray Mountain), describes himself a “lone gunman, a rogue who fights the system and hates injustice.” Working in an unspecified Southern state, Rudd isn’t afraid
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-385-54119-0
Lawyer Lacy Stolz, the heroine of this tense legal thriller from bestseller Grisham (Rogue Lawyer), investigates complaints against judges for the Florida Board on Judicial Misconduct. In her nine years on the job, there has never been any danger in
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-385-54302-6
The opening chapters detailing an elaborate scheme to steal five F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton are the best part of this thriller from bestseller Grisham (The Whistler). A sophisticated gang pulls off the theft after faking a campus
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-54117-6
Inspired by an Atlantic article, this insightful, if flawed, novel from bestseller Grisham (Camino Island) highlights the disturbing world of for-profit legal education. Friends and third-year law students—Mark Frazier, Todd Lucero, and Zola Maal—are
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $29.95 (432p) ISBN 978-0-385-54415-3
Why would a respected war hero cold-bloodedly gun down the local pastor? That’s the central mystery in this subpar outing from bestseller Grisham (The Rooster Bar). One morning in 1946, Pete Banning, a WWII vet and Ford County, Miss., cotton farmer...
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $29.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-385-54418-4
A lack of nuance mars this novel from bestseller Grisham (The Reckoning), which centers on idealistic attorneys fighting wrongful convictions. Cullen Post, who became a Lutheran minister after burning out as a public defender, is working as a lawyer
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-385-54593-8
The murder of popular thriller writer Nelson Kerr during a hurricane drives bestseller Grisham’s exciting follow-up to 2017’s Camino Island. In the hurricane’s aftermath, the Camino Island police are too preoccupied to handle the case competently,...
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $29.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-385-54596-9
At the start of bestseller Grisham’s disappointing third outing for attorney Jake Brigance (after 2013’s Sycamore Row), deputy sheriff Stu Kofer comes home one night in 1990 to the isolated house outside Clanton, Miss., he shares with his lover,...
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-54768-0
Grisham (A Time for Mercy) shoots an airball in this sappy novel about a South Sudanese teen’s journey from his impoverished home to the world of American sports. Samuel Sooleymon, 17, described as the best basketball player in his village of Lotta,
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $28.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-385-54932-5
Thinly developed characters and underwhelming plots mar the three entries in bestseller Grisham’s first novella collection. “Homecoming,” the opener, underutilizes Ford County, Miss., attorney Jake Brigance, the lead of Grisham’s debut, A Time to...
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John Grisham, Author, John Grisham, Read by , read by the author with Jack Cristil. Random House Audio $24.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-1016-8
Audio reviews reflect PW
's assessment of the audio adaptation of a book and should be quoted only in reference to the audio version.
Fiction
BLEACHERS
John Grisham
, read by the author with Jack Cristil. Random House Audio
, unabridged, four...
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John Grisham, read by Scott Brick. Random House Audio, unabridged, 14 CDs, 17 hrs., $19.99 ISBN 978-0-449-00997-0
This smart and smooth audio edition of Grisham’s 1991 novel—now a television series on NBC—about attorney Mitch McDeere and his wife, Abby, captures everything that made the book so popular. Narrator Scott Brick follows the author’s lead, reading in
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John Grisham, read by Erik Singer. Random House Audio, unabridged, four CDs, 4.5 hrs., $30 ISBN 978-0-449-01100-3
In his latest, Grisham takes another break from blockbuster legal suspense to explore the world of athletics. Decades after the fact, Paul Tracey looks back on the fateful events of the summer of 1973 involving his drunken and abusive father, Warren—
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John Grisham, Author, Grisham, Author Doubleday $29.95 (432p) ISBN 978-0-385-42471-4
Fans of the bestselling Grisham will be pleased to note that he is once more on Firm ground: his latest legal thriller offers a clever, compelling plot coupled with two singular protagonists sure to elicit readers' empathy. Eleven-year-old Mark Sway,
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John Grisham, Author, Grisham, Author Doubleday $35 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-47295-1
Money is essentially the principal character in Grisham's new thriller. It is a very large sum of it-$90 million, to be exact-that has motivated Gulf Coast lawyer Patrick Lanigan to concoct a scheme to disappear that is even more elaborate (if less...
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John Grisham, Author, Michael Beck, Read by , read by Michael Beck. Random House Audio $39.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-553-71463-0
Beck offers a fine performance in this no-frills production of Grisham's latest, despite its lack of overall narrative zip. University of Virginia law professor Ray Atlee stumbles upon more than $3 million in cash in the rural Mississippi house...
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John Grisham, Author, Michael Beck, Read by , read by Michael Beck. Random House Audio $59.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-0901-8
Longhaired 23-year-old college dropout Willie Traynor purchased a bankrupt Mississippi newspaper, The Ford County Times
, in the 1970s. With his progressive attitude and his British Spitfire car, he stands out in small town Clanton, where people "
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John Grisham, Author, Michael Beck, Read by , read by Michael Beck. Random House Audio $44.99 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-1653-5
A Mississippi jury returns a $41-million verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping carcinogenic waste into a small town's water supply. The company's ruthless billionaire CEO is thwarted and the good guys (a courageous young...
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John Grisham, read by Michael Beck. Random House Audio, unabridged, 16 CDs, 21 hrs., $45 ISBN 978-0-385-36647-2
Narrator Beck turns in a fine performance in this audio version of Grisham’s outstanding sequel to the classic courtroom drama A Time to Kill. It’s 1988 and Clayton, Miss–based lawyer Jake Brigance receives a handwritten will from the recently...
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John Grisham, Author, Dennis Boutsikaris, Read by , read by Dennis Boutsikaris. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-2419-6
Grisham's first work of nonfiction focuses on the tragedy of Ron Williamson, a baseball hero from a small town in Oklahoma who winds up a dissolute, mentally unstable Major League washout railroaded onto death row for a hometown rape and murder...
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John Grisham, read by Dennis Boutsikaris. Random House Audio, unabridged, nine CDs, 11.5 hrs., $45 ISBN 978-0-307-94319-4
When burnt-out lawyer David Zinc quits his job at a major corporate firm, a stress-induced nervous breakdown, heavy drinking, and the prospect of unemployment lead him to the doors of the seedy law firm of Finley & Figg and into the middle of a huge
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John Grisham, read by Mark Deakins. Random House Audio, , unabridged, 9 CDs, 11.5 hrs., $45 ISBN 978-0-553-39982-0
Grisham’s antihero defense attorney, Sebastian Rand, who narrates this novel, handles cases no other lawyer would touch with a 10-foot habeas corpus. More obsessed by justice than legal process or friendship or social amenities, he bends the law to...
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John Grisham, Author, Henry Leyva, Read by Random House Audio Publishing Group $27.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-553-52596-0
Grisham, with his master-storyteller legal thriller form, always plays well on audio. His latest begins with a coyly playful opening scene. Elderly billionaire industrialist Troy Phelan is holding court from his corporate office headquarters in...
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John Grisham, Author, David Lansbury, Read by , read by David Lansbury. BDD $49.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-553-50275-6
Grisham fans will not despair as they discover that this finely wrought tale includes no lawyers. Instead, the author presents an evocation of the life of a young boy growing up on a Southern farm in hard times during the fall 1952 cotton-picking...
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John Grisham, Author, Christopher Evan Welch, Read by , read by Christopher Evan Welch. Random House Audio $29.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-7393-5909-9
Christopher Evan Welch kicks and scores with his engaging narration of Grisham's charming tale of touchdowns and tortellini. Rick Dockery, a 28-year-old third-string NFL quarterback, is playing for the Cleveland Browns. In the final minutes of...
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John Grisham, read by Ari Fliakos. Random House Audio, , unabridged, 8 CDs, 10.5 hrs., $45 ISBN 978-0-399-56499-4
Grisham’s latest focuses on three law students—Mark Frazier, Todd Lucero, and Zola Maal—who, shaken by the suicide of their law school pal, Gordy Tanner, take stock of their student loan debts and dim job prospects. They decide to drop out and...
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John Grisham. Doubleday, $29.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-385-54895-3
Grisham’s disappointing sequel to The Firm, set 15 years after the events of that 1991 blockbuster, isn’t worth the three-decade wait. After extricating himself from a Tennessee law firm run by the mob, Mitch McDeere has begun a new life in New York
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