John Grisham

Biography:
See books by this author on Amazon

BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: The Last Juror: Description:
In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colourful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college drop-out, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courtroom in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, \\\\\\\'life\\\\\\\' didn\\\\\\\'t necessarily mean \\\\\\\'life\\\\\\\', and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.

Title: The Runaway Jury: Description:
Is the jury somehow being manipuated or even being controlled? if so by whom and why.

Title: The Client (fiction Omnibus): Description:
A hardback book which includes The Client and The Firm.

Title: Bleachers: Description:
With Bleachers John Grisham departs again from the legal thriller to experiment with a character-driven tale of reunion, broken high school dreams, and missed chances. While the book falls short of the compelling storytelling that has made Grisham a bestselling author, it is nonetheless a diverting novella that succeeds as light fiction. The story centers on the impending death of the Messina Spartans' football coach Eddie Rake. One of the most victorious coaches in high school football history, Rake is a man both loved and feared by his players and by a town that relishes his 13 state titles. The hero of the novel is Neely Crenshaw, a former Rake All-American whose NFL prospects ended abruptly after a cheap shot to the knees. Neely has returned home for the first time in years to join a nightly vigil for Rake at the Messina stadium. Having wandered through life with little focus since his college days, he struggles to reconcile his conflicted feelings towards his former coach, and he assays to rekindle love in the ex-girlfriend he abandoned long ago. For Messina and for Neely, the homecoming offers the prospect of building a life after Rake. Physically a narrow book, Bleachers is a modest fiction in many respects. The emotional scope is akin to that of a short story, with a single-minded focus on explorations of nostalgia and regret. The dialogue, especially that of Neely's friend Paul Curry, is sometimes wooden as characters recall Messina history in paragraphs that were perhaps better left to the narrator. But Grisham has otherwise written a well-made, entertaining--if a bit sentimental--story. --Patrick O'Kelley

Title: The Testament: Description:
Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die. His heirs, to no one's surprise - especially Troy's - are circling like vultures. 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, 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.

Title: The King Of Torts: Description:
The Office of the Public Defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long, and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles upon a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life – that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts…

Title: The Pelican Brief: Description:
Late one night Abe Rosenberg, the Supreme Court's liberal legend, is gunned down in his own home. The same night, Myron Jensen, the court's youngest and most conservative justice, is strangled. What linked the two men and what caused their deaths? Darby Shaw thinks she knows the answer

Title: The Firm: Description:
Mitch qualified at Harvard, third in his class, and is sought by law firms all over America. The one that gets him is small, but well-respected, and pays him beyond his wildest dreams. But then the nightmares begin - secret files, bugs in the bedroom, colleagues' mysterious deaths and mob money

Title: The Rainmaker: Description:
A tale of legal intrigue and corporate greed, by the author of "The Pelican Brief" and "A Time to Kill". A newly-qualified lawyer has only one case to save himself from his mounting debts. The settlement could be worth millions of dollars, but he is facing the most expensive lawyers money can buy

Title: The Brethren: Description:
John Grisham's novels have all been so systematically successful that it is easy to forget he is just one man toiling away silently with a pen, experimenting and improving with each book. While not as gifted a prose stylist as Scott Turow, Grisham is among the best plotters in the thriller business, and he infuses his books with a moral valence and creative vision that set them apart from their peers. The Brethren is in many respects his most daring book yet. The novel grows from two separate subplots. In the first, three imprisoned ex-judges (the "brethren" in the title), frustrated by their loss of power and influence, concoct an elaborate blackmail scheme that preys on wealthy, closeted gay men. The second story traces the rise of presidential candidate Aaron Lake, a puppet essentially created by CIA director Teddy Maynard to fulfill Maynard's plans for restoring the power of his beleaguered agency. Grisham's tight control of the two meandering threads leaves the reader guessing through most of the opening chapters how and when these two worlds will collide. Also impressive is Grisham's careful portraiture. Justice Hatlee Beech in particular is a fascinating, tragic anti-hero: a millionaire judge with an appointment for life who was rendered divorced, bankrupt, and friendless after his conviction for a drunk-driving homicide. The book's cynical view of presidential politics and criminal justice casts a somewhat gloomy shadow over the tale. CIA director Teddy Maynard is an all-powerful demon with absolute knowledge and control of the public will and public funds. Even his candidate, Congressman Lake, is a pawn in Maynard's egomaniacal game of ad campaigns, illicit contributions, and international intrigue. In the end, The Brethren marks a transition in Grisham's career toward a more thoughtful narrative style with less interest in the big-payoff blockbuster ending. But that's not to say that the last 50 pages won't keep your reading light turned on late. --Patrick O'Kelley

Title: The Summons: Description:
This is a tale of two brothers--one is righteous, more or less, and one is not--and a question of their inheritance. Ancient Mississippi judge Atlee summons his two sons to his deathbed, but dies before he can explain himself, leaving Ray, who arrives on time unlike his drunkard brother Forest with the difficult problem of the three million dollars in used notes which are lying around the house in shoe-boxes. Ray worries about his father's posthumous reputation, about the Inland Revenue Service and about how quickly Forrest could drink himself to death with unlimited funds

Title: The Street Lawyer: Description:
John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at Washington, D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of one day raking in a million-plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90-hour work weeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam veteran with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically, "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money- making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realizes that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicey side of Washington, DC, ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying, charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of Washington, DC) is filled with colourful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green, "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity."

Title: The Partner: Description:
Patrick Lanigan had been a young partner in a prominent Southern law firm. He had a beautiful wife, a new baby girl, and a bright future. Then one winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car; the casket they buried held nothing but ashes. A short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial then fled. A fortune was stolen from his ex-firm's offshore account. And Patrick ran, covering his tracks the whole way. But, now, they've found him

Title: The Testament: Description:
Troy Phelan, a 78-year-old eccentric and the 10th-richest man in America, is about to read his last will and testament, divvying up an estate worth $11 billion. Phelan's three ex-wives, their grasping spawn, a legion of lawyers, several psychiatrists, and a plethora of sound technicians wait breathlessly, all eyes glued to digital monitors as they watch the old man read his verdict. But Phelan shocks everyone with a bizarre, last-gasp attempt to redistribute the spoils, setting in motion a legal morality tale of a contested will, sin, and redemption. Our hero, Nate O'Riley--a washed-up, alcoholic litigator with two ruined marriages in his wake and the IRS on his tail--is dispatched to the Brazilian wetlands in search of a mysterious heir named in the will. After a harrowing trip upriver to a remote settlement in the Pantanal, he encounters Rachel Lane, a pure-hearted missionary living with an indigenous tribe and carrying out "God's work." Rachel's grave dedication and kindness impress the jaded lawyer, so much that a nasty bout of dengue fever leads him to a vision that could change his life. Back in the States, the legal proceedings drag on and Grisham has a high time with Phelan's money-hungry descendents, a regrettable bunch who squandered millions, married strippers, got druggy, and befriended the Mob. The youngest son, Ramble, is a multi-pierced, tattoo-covered malcontent with big dreams for his rock band, the Demon Monkeys. Will Nate get straight with Rachel's aid? Do the greedy heirs get theirs? What's the real legacy of a lifetime's work? The Testament is classic Grisham: a down-and-out lawyer, a lot of money, an action-packed pursuit, and the highest issues at stake. It's not just about great characters; it's about the question of what character is. --Rebekah Warren

Title: A Painted House: Description:
The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist high to my father, almost over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop." Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it. For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and sometimes, each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven year old could possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever. A Painted House is a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience

Title: The Firm: Description:
Mitch qualified at Harvard, third in his class, and is sought by law firms all over America. The one that gets him is small, but well-respected, and pays him beyond his wildest dreams. But then the nightmares begin - secret files, bugs in the bedroom, colleagues' mysterious deaths and mob money

Title: Pelican Brief: Description:
John Grisham's head was full of movies when he wrote The Pelican Brief, which is such a brisk page-turner you could use it to dry your hair. He had Julia Roberts in mind for the heroine, Darby Shaw, a brilliant Tulane law student who comes up with an ingenious theory to explain the baffling assassinations of two Supreme Court justices in one day. They were shot and strangled by ace international terrorist Khamel, who loves the film Three Days of the Condor, but government gumshoes don't get what connects the deaths. Silly government guys! They died so the conservative president, who just wants to be left alone to play golf, will appoint new, conservative justices who will help out a case involving an industrialist who is the enemy of pelicans and other living things. It's all spelled out for them in Darby's brief. She likes to do legal feats to impress her boyfriend, her boyish law prof Thomas (who, like Grisham, prefers to shave at most once a week, and is cool, smart, and antiauthoritarian). The prof likes to paint her toes red, in homage to Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. (Sarandon also starred in the film version of Grisham's The Client.) But when Thomas gets splattered by a car bomb meant for Darby, she escapes the hospital and hooks up with a Washington Post reporter, Gray Grantham, who sleuths like the guys in All the President's Men. Grisham wishes he hadn't written The Pelican Brief quite so quickly (his first novel, A Time to Kill, went through dozens of drafts), but Pelican's very breathlessness contributes to its dreamy, cinematic chase-o-rama atmosphere.

Title: The Client & The Firm: Description:
Two novels in one volume, complete & unabridged. The Client: Mark Sway is just a child, but he knows something no adult should know - the name of the murderer of a US Senator. Children's rights expert, Reggie Love knows the deadly threats hanging over Mark & his family. Together they must take on the might of the FBI & the wiles of a cold blooded killer. The Firm: He was a young, hungry law student from Harvard. They were a small but well-respected firm who were prepared to offer him his dreams. But the dream soon becomes a nightmare of secret files, bugs & mysterious disappearances, from which Mitch has only one chance of escape.

Title: The King Of Torts: Description:
The office of the Public Defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long, and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit Washington D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles upon a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life - that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession's newest king of torts...

Title: The Runaway Jury: Description:
"In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course...\"

Title: The Client: Description:
i have other books by grisham

Title: The Summons: Description:
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the common decencies of a strain of American commercial story-telling in literature and film that we often link to the work of Frank Capra or O Henry. He is not afraid of parable or of setting up situations that are at once archetypal and attractively specific. This is a tale of two brothers--one is righteous, more or less, and one is not--and a question of their inheritance. Ancient Mississippi judge Atlee summons his two sons to his deathbed, but dies before he can explain himself, leaving Ray, who arrives on time unlike his drunkard brother Forest with the difficult problem of the three million dollars in used notes which are lying around the house in shoe-boxes. Ray worries about his father's posthumous reputation, about the Inland Revenue Service and about how quickly Forrest could drink himself to death with unlimited funds. Grisham is very acute indeed on how the best of intentions lead Ray not to any significant crime or atrocity but to quietly unconscionable behaviour. And then he realises he is being followed... Grisham can build suspense out of remarkably little and has a real gift for understanding the quiet anxieties of an ordinary man. --Roz Kaveney

Title: The Firm: Description:
Mitch qualified at Harvard, third in his class, and is sought by law firms all over America. The one that gets him is small, but well-respected, and pays him beyond his wildest dreams. But then the nightmares begin - secret files, bugs in the bedroom, colleagues' mysterious deaths and mob money.

Title: The Chamber: Description:
At first listen, the narration of this abridged version of John Grisham's The Chamber seems flat and uninvolved. But Michael Beck has chosen his vocal style well, purposely eschewing unnecessary adornment and allowing this searing indictment of racism and murder to unfold on its own terms. Beck uses character voices sparingly, adding subtle emphasis to the already charged plot. The story begins with a Klan-sponsored bombing and then traces a trail of rigged acquittals stretching over three decades, until a young lawyer with secrets of his own brings the case to a powerful conclusion. --George Laney Amazon.com

Title: The Last Juror: Description:
Like many of John Grisham's better books, The Last Juror is at its best when evoking the past--Mississippi in the early 1970s--and less effective when constructing the bait-and-switch plotting with which he makes a pointed argument about the law. When Danny Padgitt (one of a family of bootleggers that is effectively a large criminal conspiracy) is convicted of rape and murder, the jury cannot agree on the death penalty--and life sentences in this time and place are liable to be as little as nine years. Padgitt threatens the jury and when, once he is out, the jurors who heard his case start being executed, conclusions are there to be jumped to... Grisham is arguing that justice has to be seen to be done, rather than specifically for the death penalty or even life-means-life sentencing. Though his case is loaded, it is never entirely sentimentalised partly because these events are seen through the eyes of one of his most engaging narrators--a young northern-newspaper editor out to make a name and a fortune for himself, but also committed to the truth and a saintly African-American matriarch who serves on the Padgitt jury. This is a deeply populist book, but never a stupid one. --Roz Kaveney

Title: The Pelican Brief: Description:
Once of John Grisham\'s best books. Darby Shaw is witness to a muder - and she was the intended target, after producing a legal brief which uncovered some shocking, top level secrets...

Title: The Rainmaker: Description:
It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a job or a prayer...except one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it...

Title: The Chamber: Description:
"The decision to bomb the office of the radical Jew lawyer was reached with relative ease." So begins Grisham's legal leviathan The Chamber, a 676-page tome that scrutinizes the death penalty and all of its nuances--from racially motivated murder to the cruel and unusual effects of a malfunctioning gas chamber. Adam Hall is a 26-year-old attorney, fresh out of law school and working at the best firm in Chicago. He might have been humming Timbuk 3's big hit, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," if it wasn't for his psychotic Southern grandfather, Sam Cayhall. Cayhall, a card-carrying member of the KKK, is on death row for killing two men. Knowing his uncle will surely die without his legal expertise, Hall comes to the rescue and puts his dazzling career at stake, while digging up a barnyard of skeletons from his family's past. Grisham fans expecting the typical action-packed plot should ready themselves for a slower pace, well-fleshed-out characters, and heavy doses of sentimentalism.

Title: The Runaway Jury: Description:
Legal Thriller, 1996

Title: The Summons: Description:
An intelligent, low-key thriller, The Summons continues John Grisham's exploration of the common decencies of a strain of American commercial story-telling in literature and film that we often link to the work of Frank Capra or O Henry. He is not afraid of parable or of setting up situations that are at once archetypal and attractively specific. This is a tale of two brothers--one is righteous, more or less, and one is not--and a question of their inheritance. Ancient Mississippi judge Atlee summons his two sons to his deathbed, but dies before he can explain himself, leaving Ray, who arrives on time unlike his drunkard brother Forest with the difficult problem of the three million dollars in used notes which are lying around the house in shoe-boxes. Ray worries about his father's posthumous reputation, about the Inland Revenue Service and about how quickly Forrest could drink himself to death with unlimited funds. Grisham is very acute indeed on how the best of intentions lead Ray not to any significant crime or atrocity but to quietly unconscionable behaviour. And then he realises he is being followed... Grisham can build suspense out of remarkably little and has a real gift for understanding the quiet anxieties of an ordinary man. --Roz Kaveney

Title: The Last Juror: Description:
Like many of John Grisham's better books, The Last Juror is at its best when evoking the past--Mississippi in the early 1970s--and less effective when constructing the bait-and-switch plotting with which he establishes a pointed argument about the law. When Danny Padgitt, part of a family of bootleggers who are effectively a large criminal conspiracy, is convicted of rape and murder, the jury cannot agree on the death penalty--and life sentences in this time and place are liable to be as little as nine years. Padgitt threatened the jury and when, once he is out, the jurors who heard his case start being executed, conclusions are there to be jumped to... Grisham is arguing that justice has to be seen to be done, rather than specifically for the death penalty or even life-means-life sentencing. Though his case is loaded, it is never entirely sentimentalised partly because these events are seen through the eyes of one of his most engaging narrators--a young Northern newspaper editor out to make a name and a fortune for himself, but also committed alike to the truth and a saintly African-American matriarch who serves on the Padgitt jury. This is a deeply populist book, but never a stupid one. --Roz Kaveney

Title: The Brethren: Description:
great story by the man who tells the best law stories

Title: The Testament Travellers: Description:
Legal Drama

Title: The Rainmaker: Description:
Lawyers and curruption

Title: A Time To Kill: Description:
When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the hoodlums who have raped his ten-year-old child, the people of Clanton see it as a crime of blood and call for his acquittal. But when extremists outside Clanton hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. Jake Brigance has been hired to defend Hailey. It's the kind of case that can make or break a young lawyer. But in the maelstrom of Clanton, it is also the kind of case that could get a young lawyer killed. 'The best thriller writer alive' - Ken Follett, "Evening Standard". 'Grisham is a natural storyteller' - "Daily Telegraph". 'A giant of the thriller genre' - "Time Out". 'Leaves one eager for more' - "Spectator". From the Publisher John Grisham's bestselling backlist newly repackaged with fantastic new covers From the Back Cover When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the hoodlums who have raped his ten-year-old child, the people of Clanton see it as a crime of blood and call for his acquittal. But when extremists outside Clanton hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. Jake Brigance has been hired to defend Hailey. It’s the kind of case that can make or break a young lawyer. But in the maelstrom of Clanton, it is also the kind of case that could get a young lawyer killed. ‘The best thriller writer alive’ Ken Follett, Evening Standard ‘Grisham is a natural storyteller’ Daily Telegraph ‘A giant of the thriller genre’ Time Out ‘Leaves one eager for more’ Spectator About the Author John Grisham:John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi. Excerpted from A Time to Kill by John Grisham. Copyright © 1992. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved CHAPTER ONE Billy Ray Cobb was the younger and smaller of the two rednecks. At twenty-three he was already a three-year veteran of the state penitentiary at Parchman. Possession with intent to sell. He was a lean, tough little punk who had survived prison by somehow maintaining a ready supply of drugs that he sold and sometimes gave to the blacks and the guards for protection. In the year since his release he had continued to prosper, and his small-time narcotics business had elevated him to the position of one of the more affluent rednecks in Ford County. He was a businessman, with employees, obligations, deals, everything but taxes. Down at the Ford place in Clanton he was known as the last man in recent history to pay cash for a new pick-up truck. Sixteen thousand cash, for a custom-built, four-wheel drive, canary yellow, luxury Ford pickup. The fancy chrome wheels and mudgrip racing tires had been received in a business deal. The rebel flag hanging across the rear window had been stolen by Cobb from a drunken fraternity boy at an Ole Miss football game. The pickup was Billy Ray's most prized possession. He sat on the tailgate drinking a beer, smoking a joint, watching his friend Willard take his turn with the black girl. Willard was four years older and a dozen years slower. He was generally a harmless sort who had never been in serious trouble and had never been seriously employed. Maybe an occasional fight with a night in jail, but nothing that would distinguish him. He called himself a pulpwood cutter, but a bad back customarily kept him out of the woods. He had hurt his back working on an offshore rig somewhere in the Gulf, and the oil company paid him a nice settlement, which he lost when his ex-wife cleaned him out. His primary vocation was that of a part-time employee of Billy Ray Cobb, who didn't pay much but was liberal with his dope. For the first time in years Willard could always get his hands on something. And he always needed something. He'd been that way since he'd hurt his back. She was ten and small for her age. She lay on her elbows, which were stuck and bound together with yellow nylon rope. Her legs were spread grotesquely with the right foot tied tight to an oak sapling and the left to a rotting, leaning post of a long-neglected fence. The ski rope had cut into her ankles and the blood ran down her legs. Her face was bloody and swollen, with one eye bulging and closed and the other eye half open so she could see the other white man sitting on the truck. She did not look at the man on top of her. He was breathing hard and sweating and cursing. He was hurting her. When he finished, he slapped her and laughed, and the other man laughed in return, then they laughed harder and rolled around the grass by the truck like two crazy men, screaming and laughing. She turned away from them and cried softly, careful to keep herself quiet. She had been slapped earlier for crying and screaming. They promised to kill her if she didn't keep quiet. They grew tired of laughing and pulled themselves onto the tailgate, where Willard cleaned himself with the little nigger's shirt, which by now was soaked with blood and sweat. Cobb handed him a cold beer from the cooler and commented on the humidity. They watched her as she sobbed and made strange, quiet sounds, then became still. Cobb's beer was half empty, and it was not cold anymore. He threw it at the girl. It hit her in the stomach, splashing white foam, and it rolled off in the dirt near some other cans, all of which had originated from the same cooler. For two six-packs now they had thrown their half-empty cans at her and laughed. They were not ones to waste beer, but the heavier cans could be felt better and it was great fun to watch the foam shoot everywhere. The warm beer mixed with the dark blood and ran down her face and neck into a puddle behind her head. She did not move. Willard asked Cobb if he thought she was dead. Cobb opened another beer and explained that she was not dead because niggers generally could not be killed by kicking and beating and raping. It took much more, something like a knife or a gun or a rope to dispose of a nigger. Although he had never taken part in such a killing, he had lived with a bunch of niggers in prison and knew all about them. They were always killing each other, and they always used a weapon of some sort. Those who were just beaten and raped never died. Some of the whites were beaten and raped, and some of them died. But none of the niggers. Their heads were harder. Willard seemed satisfied. Willard asked what he planned to do now that they were through with her. Cobb sucked on his joint, chased it with beer, and said he wasn't through. He bounced from the tailgate and staggered across the clearing to where she was tied. He cursed her and screamed at her to wake up, then he poured cold beer in her face, laughing like a crazy man. She watched him as he walked around the tree on her right side, and she stared at him as he stared between her legs. When he lowered his pants she turned to the left and closed her eyes. He was hurting her again. She looked out through the woods and saw something - a man running wildly through the vines and underbrush. It was her daddy, yelling and pointing at her and coming desperately to save her. She cried out for him, and he disappeared. She fell asleep.

Title: The Innocent Man: Description:
John Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, in his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits - drinking, drugs and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept 20 hours a day on her sofa. In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jaihouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to Death Row. If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you. From the Publisher Murder and injustice in a Small Town About the Author John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississipi.

Title: The Broker: Description:
In his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing President grants a controversial last minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems that Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive - there's no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him? From the Publisher John Grisham's bestselling backlist repackaged with fantastic new covers From the Back Cover In his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one else knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure form the CIA. It seems that Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive - there's ni chanceof that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him? 'You have to know what happens next... Grisham hasn't lost his touch' Daily Mail 'A killer combination of sheer story-telling nous and no-nonsense prose' Independent 'Nail-biting' Sun About the Author John Grisham:John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi. Excerpted from The Broker by John Grisham. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. In the waning hours of a presidency that was destined to arouse less interest from historians than any since perhaps that of William Henry Harrison (thirty-one days from inauguration to death), Arthur Morgan huddled in the Oval Office with his last remaining friend and pondered his final decisions. At that moment he felt as though he’d botched every decision in the previous four years, and he was not overly confident that he could, somehow, so late in the game, get things right. His friend wasn’t so sure either, though, as always, he said little and whatever he did say was what the President wanted to hear. They were about pardons—desperate pleas from thieves and embezzlers and liars, some still in jail and some who’d never served time but who nonetheless wanted their good names cleared and their beloved rights restored. All claimed to be friends, or friends of friends, or die-hard supporters, though only a few had ever gotten the chance to proclaim their support before that eleventh hour. How sad that after four tumultuous years of leading the free world it would all fizzle into one miserable pile of requests from a bunch of crooks. Which thieves should be allowed to steal again? That was the momentous question facing the President as the hours crept by. The last friend was Critz, an old fraternity pal from their days at Cornell when Morgan ran the student government while Critz stuffed the ballot boxes. In the past four years, Critz had served as press secretary, chief of staff, national security advisor, and even secretary of state, though that appointment lasted for only three months and was hastily rescinded when Critz’s unique style of diplomacy nearly ignited World War III. Critz’s last appointment had taken place the previous October, in the final frantic weeks of the reelection onslaught. With the polls showing President Morgan trailing badly in at least forty states, Critz seized control of the campaign and managed to alienate the rest of the country, except, arguably, Alaska. It had been a historic election; never before had an incumbent president received so few electoral votes. Three to be exact, all from Alaska, the only state Morgan had not visited, at Critz’s advice. Five hundred and thirty-five for the challenger, three for President Morgan. The word "landslide" did not even begin to capture the enormity of the shellacking. Once the votes were counted, the challenger, following bad advice, decided to contest the results in Alaska.Why not go for all 538 electoral votes? he reasoned. Never again would a candidate for the presidency have the opportunity to completely whitewash his opponent, to throw the mother of all shutouts. For six weeks the President suffered even more while lawsuits raged in Alaska.When the supreme court there eventually awarded him the state’s three electoral votes, he and Critz had a very quiet bottle of champagne. President Morgan had become enamored of Alaska, even though the certified results gave him a scant seventeen-vote margin. He should have avoided more states. He even lost Delaware, his home, where the once-enlightened electorate had allowed him to serve eight wonderful years as governor. Just as he had never found the time to visit Alaska, his opponent had totally ignored Delaware—no organization to speak of, no television ads, not a single campaign stop. And his opponent still took 52 percent of the vote! Critz sat in a thick leather chair and held a notepad with a list of a hundred things that needed to be done immediately. He watched his President move slowly from one window to the next, peering into the darkness, dreaming of what might have been. The man was depressed and humiliated. At fifty-eight his life was over, his career a wreck, his marriage crumbling. Mrs. Morgan had already moved back to Wilmington and was openly laughing at the idea of living in a cabin in Alaska. Critz had secret doubts about his friend’s ability to hunt and fish for the rest of his life, but the prospect of living two thousand miles from Mrs. Morgan was very appealing. They might have carried Nebraska if the rather blue-blooded First Lady had not referred to the football team as the "Sooners." The Nebraska Sooners! Overnight, Morgan fell so far in the polls in both Nebraska and Oklahoma that he never recovered. And in Texas she took a bite of prizewinning chili and began vomiting. As she was rushed to the hospital a microphone captured her still-famous words: "How can you backward people eat such a putrid mess?" Nebraska has five electoral votes. Texas has thirty-four. Insulting the local football team was a mistake they could have survived. But no candidate could overcome such a belittling description of Texas chili. What a campaign! Critz was tempted to write a book. Someone needed to record the disaster. Their partnership of almost forty years was ending. Critz had lined up a job with a defense contractor for $200,000 a year, and he would hit the lecture circuit at $50,000 a speech if anybody was desperate enough to pay it. After dedicating his life to public service, he was broke and aging quickly and anxious to make a buck. The President had sold his handsome home in Georgetown for a huge profit. He’d bought a small ranch in Alaska, where the people evidently admired him. He planned to spend the rest of his days there, hunting, fishing, perhaps writing his memoirs. Whatever he did in Alaska, it would have nothing to do with politics and Washington. He would not be the senior statesman, the grand old man of anybody’s party, the sage voice of experience. No farewell tours, convention speeches, endowed chairs of political science. No presidential library. The people had spoken with a clear and thunderous voice. If they didn’t want him, then he could certainly live without them. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Title: The Testament: Description:
Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die. His heirs, to no one's surprise--especially Troy's--are circling like vultures. 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, 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.

Title: John Grisham 2 In 1 The Chamber The Rainmaker: Description:
The Chamber. Twenty-six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case. Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison: Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson. While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life...or cost Adam his. The Rainmaker. It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a job or a prayer...except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it. By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him. And suddenly he's in over his head, plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuverings. A case that started small is exploding into a thunderous million-dollar war of nerves, skill and outright violence--a fight that could cost one young lawyer his life, or turn him into the biggest rainmaker in the land..

Title: Playing For Pizza: Description:
Rick Dockery was the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the deciding game at the climax of the season, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he became a national laughing stock and, of course, was immediately dropped by the Browns and shunned by all other teams. But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, finds a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback. Great says Rick - for which team?The mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy. Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a player from the home of American footballat their helm. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthers - at least until a better offer comes along - and heads off to Italy.He knows nothing about Parma (not even where it is), has never been to Europe, and doesn't speak or understand a word of Italian. To say that Italy - the land of opera, fine wines, extremely small cars, romance and football americano - holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement. About the Author John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels and the recent international number one non-fiction debut The Innocent Man. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi.

Title: The King Of Torts: Description:
Reluctantly, Clay Carter takes on what seems to be the mundane case of a young man charged with a random street killing. But when digging into his client's background, he stumbles upon a horrendous conspiracy and finds himself in a situation that could make him the legal profession's king of torts.

Title: The Brethren: Description:
Trumble is a minimum security federal prison, home to an assortment of criminals, including three former judges, drug dealers, Wall Street crooks and swindlers. One of their scams goes awry, it ensnares the wrong victim, an innocent on the outside, a man with dangerous friends. From the Publisher Grisham's bestselling backlist reissued with fantastic new covers --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From the Back Cover Trumble is a minimum security federal prison, home to drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, and three former judges who call themselves The Brethren. They meet each day in the law library where they spend hours writing letters. They are fine-tuning a mail scam, and it’s starting to really work. The money is pouring in. Then their little scam goes awry. It ensnares the wrong victim, a powerful man on the outside, a man with dangerous friends, and The Brethren’s days of quietly marking time are over. ‘Grisham spins out a compelling, beautifully written thriller… it’s all absolutely brilliant’ Independent on Sunday ‘An engaging and fast-paced story of powerful men in high places and blackmail gone awry, it will hook you from the first page and won’t let you go’ New York Post ‘Completely gripping’ Mirror ‘A lively and fast-paced story’ Times Literary Supplement --This text refers to the Paperback edition. About the Author John Grisham:John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. Excerpted from The Brethren by John Grisham. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved Chapter One For the weekly docket the court jester wore his standard garb of well-used and deeply faded maroon pajamas and lavender terry-cloth shower shoes with no socks. He wasn't the only inmate who went about his daily business in his pajamas, but no one else dared wear lavender shoes. His name was T. Karl, and he'd once owned banks in Boston. The pajamas and shoes weren't nearly as troubling as the wig. It parted at the middle and rolled in layers downward, over his ears, with tight curls coiling off into three directions, and fell heavily onto his shoulders. It was a bright gray, almost white, and fashioned after the Old English magistrate's wigs from centuries earlier. A friend on the outside had found it at a secondhand costume store in Manhattan, in the Village. T. Karl wore it to court with great pride, and, odd as it was, it had, with time, become part of the show. The other inmates kept their distance from T. Karl anyway, wig or not. He stood behind his flimsy folding table in the prison cafeteria, tapped a plastic mallet that served as a gavel, cleared his squeaky throat, and announced with great dignity: `Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. The Inferior Federal Court of North Florida is now in session. Please rise.' No one moved, or at least no one made an effort to stand. Thirty inmates lounged in various stages of repose in plastic cafeteria chairs, some looking at the court jester, some chatting away as if he didn't exist. T. Karl continued: `Let all ye who search for justice draw nigh and get screwed.' No laughs. It had been funny months earlier when T. Karl first tried it. Now it was just another part of the show. He sat down carefully, making sure the rows of curls bouncing upon his shoulders were given ample chance to be seen, then he opened a thick red leather book which served as the official record for the court. He took his work very seriously. Three men entered the room from the kitchen. Two of them wore shoes. One was eating a saltine. The one with no shoes was also bare-legged up to his knees, so that below his robe his spindly legs could be seen. They were smooth and hairless and very brown from the sun. A large tattoo had been applied to his left calf. He was from California. All three wore old church robes from the same choir, pale green with gold trim. They came from the same store as T. Karl's wig, and had been presented by him as gifts at Christmas. That was how he kept his job as the court's official clerk. There were a few hisses and jeers from the spectators as the judges ambled across the tile floor, in full regalia, their robes flowing. They took their places behind a long folding table, near T. Karl but not too near, and faced the weekly gathering. The short round one sat in the middle. Joe Roy Spicer was his name, and by default he acted as the Chief Justice of the tribunal. In his previous life, Judge Spicer had been a Justice of the Peace in Mississippi, duly elected by the people of his little county, and sent away when the feds caught him skimming bingo profits from a Shriners club. `Please be seated,' he said. Not a soul was standing. The judges adjusted their folding chairs and shook their robes until they fell properly around them. The assistant warden stood to the side, ignored by the inmates. A guard in uniform was with him. The Brethren met once a week with the prison's approval. They heard cases, mediated disputes, settled little fights among the boys, and had generally proved to be a stabilizing factor amid the population. Spicer looked at the docket, a neat hand-printed sheet of paper prepared by T. Karl, and said, `Court shall come to order.' To his right was the Californian, the Honorable Finn Yarber, age sixty, in for two years now with five to go for income tax evasion. A vendetta, he still maintained to anyone who would listen. A crusade by a Republican governor who'd managed to rally the voters in a recall drive to remove Chief Justice Yarber from the California Supreme Court. The rallying point had been Yarber's opposition to the death penalty, and his high-handedness in delaying every execution. Folks wanted blood, Yarber prevented it, the Republicans whipped up a frenzy, and the recall was a smashing success. They pitched him onto the street, where he floundered for a while until the IRS began asking questions. Educated at Stanford, indicted in Sacramento, sentenced in San Francisco, and now serving his time at a federal prison in Florida. In for two years and Finn was still struggling with the bitterness. He still believed in his own innocence, still dreamed of conquering his enemies. But the dreams were fading. He spent a lot of time on the jogging track, alone, baking in the sun and dreaming of another life. `First case is Schneiter versus Magruder,' Spicer announced as if a major antitrust trial was about to start. `Schneiter's not here,' Beech said. `Where is he?' `Infirmary. Gallstones again. I just left there.' Hatlee Beech was the third member of the tribunal. He spent most of his time in the infirmary because of hemorrhoids, or headaches, or swollen glands. Beech was fifty-six, the youngest of the three, and with nine years to go he was convinced he would die in prison. He'd been a federal judge in East Texas, a hardfisted conservative who knew lots of Scripture and liked to quote it during trials. He'd had political ambitions, a nice family, money from his wife's family's oil trust. He also had a drinking problem which no one knew about until he ran over two hikers in Yellowstone. Both died. The car Beech had been driving was owned by a young lady he was not married to. She was found naked in the front seat, too drunk to walk. They sent him away for twelve years.

Title: The Runaway Jury: Description:
'Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.'

Title: The Street Lawyer: Description:
High powered legal novel

Title: The Innocent Man: Description:
John Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits - drinking, drugs and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept 20 hours a day on her sofa.In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to Death Row.If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you. From the Back Cover Ron Williamson was a star college baseball player in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma. When he left to pursue his dreams he seemed destined for glory. But years of injury, drinking, drugs and women took their toll. He returned to Ada a lonely drifter. In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress was raped and murdered. After five years of fruitless investigation the police arrested Williamson for want of any other suspect. The case against him was built on bogus evidence and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. He was found guilty at trial and sent to Death Row. This is a true story of the criminal justice system gone terribly wrong. Of vengeful prosecutors and incompetent defence lawyers. Of a man’s journey to hell. A journey from which he nearly didn’t return. ‘John Grisham has built his stunning writing career on producing brilliant, fast moving, utterly believable legal thrillers. His 19th book however, is so harrowing and gruesome that it just doesn’t seem conceivable. Yet it's true - all of it’ The Mirror ‘A work of art...this is a terrible and beautiful book. The burning care and respect for his fellow man shown by Grisham permeates and warms every page’Sunday Express ‘Like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, The Innocent Man brings a novelist's eye to re-creating a complex chain of events and human reaction surrounding a crime and its aftermath’ Sunday Times About the Author John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels and the international number one non fiction debut The Innocent Man. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississipi.

Title: The Testament: Description:
An eccentric, reclusive billionaire looking for a way to die, burnt-out Washington litigator just out of rehab for the fourth time, and a woman who left the modern world to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the jungles of Brazil. They are all brought together by the startling secret of The Testament. From the Publisher John Grisham's bestselling backlist repackaged with fantastic new covers --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From the Back Cover It was only a piece of paper but it could change many lives. Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and determined to cut his children out of his will. Nate O'Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who's lived too hard, too fast, for too long. 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 encumberances, and went to live in the deepest jungles of Brazil. Nate's job is to find Rachel and tell her of Phelan's legacy. In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure, their lives will be forever altered. 'Grisham is on top form with this legal blockbuster' Daily Mail 'A compulsory page-turner with a subterranean plot as old and potent as myth' Newsweek 'The Testament is his best novel in the past five... a brilliant first chapter... you have to go on reading' Mail on Sunday --This text refers to the Paperback edition. About the Author John Grisham:John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. Excerpted from The Testament by John Grisham. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved Chapter One Down to the last day, even the last hour now. I'm an old man, lonely and unloved, sick and hurting and tired of living. I am ready for the hereafter; it has to be better than this. I own the tall glass building in which I sit, and 97 percent of the company housed in it, below me, and the land around it half a mile in three directions, and the two thousand people who work here and the other twenty thousand who do not, and I own the pipeline under the land that brings gas to the building from my fields in Texas, and I own the utility lines that deliver electricity, and I lease the satellite unseen miles above by which I once barked commands to my empire flung far around the world. My assets exceed eleven billion dollars. I own silver in Nevada and copper in Montana and coffee in Kenya and coal in Angola and rubber in Malaysia and natural gas in Texas and crude oil in Indonesia and steel in China. My company owns companies that produce electricity and make computers and build dams and print paperbacks and broadcast signals to my satellite. I have subsidiaries with divisions in more countries than anyone can find. I once owned all the appropriate toys - the yachts and jets and blondes, the homes in Europe, farms in Argentina, an island in the Pacific, thoroughbreds, even a hockey team. But I've grown too old for toys. The money is the root of my misery. I had three families - three ex-wives who bore seven children, six of whom are still alive and doing all they can to torment me. To the best of my knowledge, I fathered all seven, and buried one. I should say his mother buried him. I was out of the country. I am estranged from all the wives and all the children. They're gathering here today because I'm dying and it's time to divide the money. I have planned this day for a long time. My building has fourteen floors, all long and wide and squared around a shaded courtyard in the rear where I once held lunches in the sunshine. I live and work on the top floor - twelve thousand square feet of opulence that would seem obscene to many but doesn't bother me in the least. By sweat and brains and luck I built every dime of my fortune. Spending it is my prerogative. Giving it away should be my choice too, but I'm being hounded. Why should I care who gets the money? I've done everything imaginable with it. As I sit here in my wheelchair, alone and waiting, I cannot think of a single thing I want to buy, or see, or a single place I want to go, or another adventure I want to pursue. I've done it all, and I'm very tired. I don't care who gets the money. But I do care very much who does not get it. Every square foot of this building was designed by me, and so I know exactly where to place everyone for this little ceremony. They're all here, waiting and waiting, though they don't mind. They'd stand naked in a blizzard for what I'm about to do. The first family is Lillian and her brood - four of my offspring born to a woman who rarely let me touch her. We married young - I was twenty-four and she was eighteen - and so Lillian is old too. I haven't seen her in years, and I won't see her today. I'm sure she's still playing the role of the grieving, abandoned yet dutiful first wife who got traded in for a trophy. She has never remarried, and I'm sure she hasn't had sex in fifty years. I don't know how we reproduced. Her oldest is now forty-seven, Troy Junior, a worthless idiot who is cursed with my name. As a boy he adopted the nickname of TJ, and still prefers it to Troy. Of the six children gathered here now, TJ is the dumbest, though it's close. He was tossed from college when he was nineteen for selling drugs. TJ, like the rest, was given five million dollars on his twenty-first birthday. And like the rest, it ran like water through his fingers. I cannot bear to recount the miserable histories of Lillian's children. Suffice to say they're all heavily in debt and virtually unemployable, with little hope of changing, so my signing of this will is the most critical event in their lives. Back to the ex-wives. From the frigidity of Lillian, I ran to the steamy passion of Janie, a beautiful young thing hired as a secretary in Accounting but promoted rapidly when I decided I needed her on business trips. I divorced Lillian and married Janie, who was twenty-two years younger than I was and determined to keep me satisfied. She had two children as fast as she could. She used them as anchors to keep me close. Rocky, the younger, was killed in a sports car with two of his buddies, in a wreck that cost me six million to settle out of court. I married Tira when I was sixty-four. She was twenty-three and pregnant by me with a little monster she named Ramble, for some reason that was never clear to me. Ramble is now fourteen, and already has one arrest for shoplifting and one arrest for possession of marijuana. His oily hair sticks to his neck and falls way down his back, and he adorns himself with rings in his ears, eyebrows, and nose. I'm told he goes to school when he feels like it. Ramble is ashamed that his father is almost eighty, and his father is ashamed that his son has silver beads pierced through his tongue. And he, along with the rest of them, expects me to sign my name on this will and make his life better. As large as my fortune is, the money won't last long among these fools.

Title: The Broker: Description:
The novel follows the story of Joel Backman, a newly-pardoned prisoner who had tried to broker a deal to give the world's most powerful satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder.

Title: A Painted House: Description:
The tale of a journey from innocence to experience. Autumn 1952, and seven-year-old Luke helps his family pick cotton on the Arkansas farm that they rent. Times are hard, tension is high, and he finds himself keeping secrets that threaten the crop and will change the life of his family forever. From the Publisher John Grisham's bestselling backlist repackaged with new fantastic covers --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From the Back Cover September 1952. The cotton is almost ready in the fields of Arkansas. The harvest will soon begin. Luke Chandler is a seven-year-old who lives with his family in a small, unpainted house on rented land. In the next six weeks, the Chandlers and a hired band of hill people and Mexicans must bring in the cotton that is their livelihood and the guarantee of their survival on the land. Soon heat, rain, fatigue, a killing and the unraveling of a family secret threaten to destroy the Chandlers' hopes and will transport Luke abruptly from the childhood innocence to experience. 'His best work... a lyrical, gritty and personal novel' The Times 'A beguiling and gracefully constructed novel' Sunday Times 'John Grisham's pared-down, colloquial prose... is at times reminiscent of Hemingway. A tale told by a craftsman with skill and assurance' Spectator --This text refers to the Paperback edition. About the Author John Grisham:John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. Excerpted from A Painted House by John Grisham. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father, over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop." They were farmers, hardworking men who embraced pessimism only when discussing the weather and the crops. There was too much sun, or too much rain, or the threat of floods in the lowlands, or the rising prices of seed and fertilizer, or the uncertainties of the markets. On the most perfect of days, my mother would quietly say to me, "Don't worry. The men will find something to worry about." Pappy, my grandfather, was worried about the price for labor when we went searching for the hill people. They were paid for every hundred pounds of cotton they picked. The previous year, accord!ing to him, it was $1.50 per hundred. He'd already heard rumors that a farmer over in Lake City was offering $1.60. This played heavily on his mind as we rode to town. He never talked when he drove, and this was because, according to my mother, not much of a driver herself, he was afraid of motorized vehicles. His truck was a 1939 Ford, and with the exception of our old John Deere tractor, it was our sole means of transportation. This was no particular problem except when we drove to church and my mother and grandmother were forced to sit snugly together up front in their Sunday best while my father and I rode in the back, engulfed in dust. Modern sedans were scarce in rural Arkansas. Pappy drove thirty-seven miles per hour. His theory was that every automobile had a speed at which it ran most efficiently, and through some vaguely defined method he had determined that his old truck should go thirty-seven. My mother said (to me) that it was ridiculous. She also said he and my f!ather had once fought over whether the truck should go faster. But my father rarely drove it, and if I happened to be riding with him, he would level off at thirty-seven, out of respect for Pappy. My mother said she suspected he drove much faster when he was alone. We turned onto Highway 135, and, as always, I watched Pappy carefully shift the gears-pressing slowly on the clutch, delicately prodding the stick shift on the steering column-until the truck reached its perfect speed. Then I leaned over to check the speedometer: thirty-seven. He smiled at me as if we both agreed that the truck belonged at that speed. Highway 135 ran straight and flat through the farm country of the Arkansas Delta. On both sides as far as I could see, the fields were white with cotton. It was time for the harvest, a wonderful season for me because they turned out school for two months. For my grandfather, though, it was a time of endless worry. ••• On the right, at the Jordan place, we saw a group o!f Mexicans working in the field near the road. They were stooped at the waist, their cotton sacks draped behind them, their hands moving deftly through the stalks, tearing off the bolls. Pappy grunted. He didn't like the Jordans because they were Methodists-and Cubs fans. Now that they already had workers in their fields, there was another reason to dislike them. The distance from our farm to town was fewer than eight miles, but at thirty-seven miles an hour, the trip took twenty minutes. Always twenty minutes, even with little traffic. Pappy didn't believe in passing slower vehicles in front of him. Of course, he was usually the slow one. Near Black Oak, we caught up to a trailer filled to the top with snowy mounds of freshly picked cotton. A tarp covered the front half, and the Montgomery twins, who were my age, playfully bounced around in all that cotton until they saw us on the road below them. Then they stopped and waved. I waved back, but my grandfather did not. When he !drove, he never waved or nodded at folks, and this was, my mother said, because he was afraid to take his hands from the wheel. She said people talked about him behind his back, saying he was rude and arrogant. Personally, I don't think he cared how the gossip ran. We followed the Montgomery trailer until it turned at the cotton gin. It was pulled by their old Massey Harris tractor, and driven by Frank, the eldest Montgomery boy, who had dropped out of school in the fifth grade and was considered by everyone at church to be headed for serious trouble. Highway 135 became Main Street for the short stretch it took to negotiate Black Oak. We passed the Black Oak Baptist Church, one of the few times we'd pass without stopping for some type of service. Every store, shop, business, church, even the school, faced Main Street, and on Saturdays the traffic inched along, bumper to bumper, as the country folks flocked to town for their weekly shopping. But it was Wednesday, and when we got into town, we parked in front of Pop and Pearl Watson's grocery store on Main. I waited on the sidewalk until my grandfather nodded in the direction of the store. That was my cue to go inside and purchase a Tootsie Roll, on credit. It only cost a penny, but it was not a foregone conclusion that I would get one every trip to town. Occasionally, he wouldn't nod, but I would enter the store anyway and loiter around the cash register long enough for Pearl to sneak me one, which always came with strict instructions not to tell my grandfather. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Title: The Rainmaker: Description:
A thriller from the author of THE PARTNER. A newly-qualified lawyer is given a case against a giant insurance company accused of allowing one of their customers to die, but his moral anger is in danger of being financially sated.

Title: Playing For Pizza: Description:
Rick Dockery was the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the deciding game at the climax of the season, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he became a national laughing stock and, of course, was immediately dropped by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, finds a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback. Great says Rick - for which team? The mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy. Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a player from the home of American footballat their helm. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthers - at least until a better offer comes along - and heads off to Italy.He knows nothing about Parma (not even where it is), has never been to Europe, and doesn't speak or understand a word of Italian. To say that Italy - the land of opera, fine wines, extremely small cars, romance and football americano - holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement. From the Back Cover Rick Dockery was a quarterback for one of America’s most famous football teams when he gave arguably the worst performance in his league’s history. Overnight Rick became a laughing stock and unemployable in his own country. But his agent somehow finds Rick a job. He is guaranteed a starting position and a salary. The only problem is that the team that wants him is in Parma, Italy. The American football league in Italy is tiny and, unlike Rick, the Italian players only get paid in free meals. Rick has never been to Italy, so it’s no surprise that the country has a few surprises for him. What follows is a delightful, heart-warming story of an innocent abroad. ‘A lyrical page-turner and a gasp-inducing reminder of the scope of this man’s genius with the written word. A delightful read.’ Sunday Express About the Author John Grisham is the author of eighteen bestselling novels and the recent international number one non-fiction debut The Innocent Man. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi.

Title: The Brethren: Description:
Tumble a minimum security federal prison, a camp, home to the usual assortment of relatively harmless criminals. Three former judges reside there and call themselves the brethren. They meet everyday in the law library, their turf at tumble where they write briefs, handle cases for other inmates. They spend hours writing letters fine tuning a mail scam with money pouring in and then their little scam goes awry.

Our Top Rated Books

Longitude

By Dava Sobel
Over My Dead Body (eddathorpe Mystery)

By Raymond Flynn
Ps, I Love You

By Cecelia Ahern
The First Chronicles Of Druss The Legend

By David Gemmell
The Graft

By Martina Cole
The War Artist

By Steven Kelly
Rumble In The Jungle

By Giles Andreae
Death Dance

By Linda Fairstein
Bravo Two-zero

By Andy Mcnab
A Lucky Break

By Lynda Page