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The Runaway Jury

by John Grisham (Goodreads Author)

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 113,191 ratings · 1,075 reviews

Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongsto him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobaccotrial with hundreds of millions of dollars atstake beginsroutinely, then swerves mysteriously offcourse. The jury is behaving strangely, and atleast one juroris convinced he's being watched. Soonthey have to be sequestered. Then a tip from ananonymousyoung woman suggests she i...more

Hardcover, 416 pages

Published May 1st 1996 by Doubleday (first published 1996)

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Apr 12, 2011 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nicholas Easter, juror number 2 and a mysterious woman known as Marlee conspire to manipulate the jury to secure a verdict in a landmark trial involving a widow plaintiff (whose husband died of lung cancer because of cigarette addiction) and a big tobacco company. They have to play with both sides (the plaintiff and the defense) and go up against a cunning jury consultant Rankin Fitch who is an expert in jury manipulations. Fitch works for the defense.

The Runaway Jury is an intensely suspenseful...more

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Mar 06, 2009 Alex added it · review of another edition

The Runaway Jury by John Grisham
The Runaway Jury by John Grisham draws you into a story of power. While the widow of a man who was killed by lung cancer, after smoking for most of his life, is suing a tobacco company, the reader finds out that this is not a normal trial case. Usually the side with the most votes gets their verdict, but now there is a single powerful person who controls all of it.

The widow’s lawyer is named Mr. Rohr. He is trying to make it big because he knows if he wins this t...more The Runaway Jury by John Grisham
The Runaway Jury by John Grisham draws you into a story of power. While the widow of a man who was killed by lung cancer, after smoking for most of his life, is suing a tobacco company, the reader finds out that this is not a normal trial case. Usually the side with the most votes gets their verdict, but now there is a single powerful person who controls all of it.

The widow’s lawyer is named Mr. Rohr. He is trying to make it big because he knows if he wins this trial there are many more smokers with lung cancer out there for him to have his own choice of trials.

The tobacco company’s lawyer is Durwood Cable, but he isn’t really talked about too much. The main person who fights for the tobacco company the most is Rankin Fitch. He is a devious person who has had many cases like this before. “So far he is 8-0.” He has helped win cases like this before usually by using corrupt and illegal ways. He is mostly unknown to everyone else in the world, except for the rich tobacco companies who need help in winning a case. He doesn’t directly get involved in the courtroom, but what he does outside of it greatly affects the outcome. He prefers not to be known, and he lets the companies' lawyers take care of the talking.

The story takes place mostly in the courtroom. During the beginning of the trial a mysterious woman shows up. She shows Fitch that she can control the jury and its verdict. When she causes 2 members of the jury to be removed, Fitch becomes interested in who this mysterious woman is. He tries to figure out who she is, but she is always one step ahead of him.

The main character of the novel is Nicholas Easter. He is chosen as one of the jurors. While they were choosing the jury, they started to look around and find out information on the potential jurors. They don’t find out much about Nicholas. He and the mysterious woman know each other very well.

Everyone seems to like Nicholas the most. Even though he isn’t chosen as their leader, the jurors treat him like he is. Also the judge has taken a liking to him. He went to college to become a lawyer, but he dropped out early. He uses the knowledge he gained there to understand what is going on in the courtroom and also to persuade the other jurors to do what he says.

Eventually Fitch catches on to what Nicholas and the mysterious woman are doing and tries to get them to sway to the tobacco company’s side. Fitch digs into both of their pasts and almost finds out who they both are.

Even though this story is fictional John Grisham makes you feel as if you had experienced it before.. This book makes you wonder what you would have done if you were Nicholas and which side you would have chosen.

One of the main themes of The Runaway Jury is power and its corruption. In the story power is achieved through wealth which can be used to influence or pay anyone off. This is primarily the tobacco company. They use their money to carry out schemes to influence and sway the votes of jurors and their families. This book shows how deception and betrayal are everywhere, including the people who are supposed to fight for justice.

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Jan 27, 2009 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries-and-thrillers

Runway Jury, is the more traditional Grisham, but a nifty suspense-filled story. I really enjoyed it. Lawyers will hate it, as it portrays them as terrible blood-sucking-win-at-any-cost malevolent characters. Fortunately, in this novel they get their due.
In this novel Grisham dissects the tobacco industry. Given the absolutely stunning amount of money involved in the recent class action suits against the tobacco companies, Grisham starts with the assumption, a quite reasonable one, that the i...more

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May 08, 2013 Hugo Stetz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"The Runaway Jury," a novel written by John Grisham, is a book that is able to tell a very intriguing story in such a way that the reader simply can't put the book down once they start reading it. It may be classified by many to be part of a minor genre, but it can be easily said that this book can appeal to a very large a diverse audience.
Though this novel is set in a setting that is fairly similar to our own present time, the plot that it tells is able to turn the environment in which it is to...more "The Runaway Jury," a novel written by John Grisham, is a book that is able to tell a very intriguing story in such a way that the reader simply can't put the book down once they start reading it. It may be classified by many to be part of a minor genre, but it can be easily said that this book can appeal to a very large a diverse audience.
Though this novel is set in a setting that is fairly similar to our own present time, the plot that it tells is able to turn the environment in which it is told into a very interesting and dynamic world. The majority of this book's plot is set in Biloxi, a settlement to be found in the state of Mississippi, in which a monumental tobacco trial takes place. Throughout the beginning of the book, this trial simply proceeds as one would expect, though the large amount of work, effort and money put into it by both sides of the trial is described in so much detail that the reader begins to feel just how important it may be to the people involved. Within the first few chapters of the book, this trial slowly escalates to new levels, and external forces begin pressuring both sides to attempt new methods and tactics to influence the single most important thing to be found in the courtroom: the jury.
The characters found in this novel are also very unique and varied, and do a great job of progressing the story. For example, the main "head" of the plaintiff in the trial is a man that seems to always be in a casual, sometimes ridiculous suit, always making new friends and sporting a friendly and carefree demeanor, while the main "leader" of the defense in the trial is a man who is quite the opposite: prone to temper, ready to do any number of dark deeds to get what he wants and almost never showing his face to the public throughout the whole novel.
In conclusion, "The Runaway Jury" is a book with a dynamic setting and diverse characters, among other things which all combine to form a great story and conflict. It should definitely be read by anyone who has the chance to pick it up, as it will provide nothing less than a fascinating read.(less)

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Mar 04, 2013 Harv Griffin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Do you like courtroom drama?

Shelves: own, reviewed

John Grisham novels are a good “first read” for me; but I usually have no desire to revisit the books. RUNAWAY JURY is one I have gone back to re-read many times. The movie is also a treat, with Gene Hackman & Dustin Hoffman.

A potential juror and his outside partner target and stalk the trials against Big Tobacco; hoping to get him on as a juror in a big case, which they manage to accomplish. While Big Tobacco is pulling every dirty trick in the book and inventing new dirty tricks to force...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Kathryn Lucas rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm glad I didn't pay for this book. Our apartment building has a bookcase in front of the elevator, and someone in the building must be a Grisham fan, because I've picked up several of his books from the communal bookcase. This is the worst of the Grishams that I've read.

What annoyed me the most was the sheer implausibility of the whole story. The civil tobacco trial itself was plausible enough, but the jury foreman protagonist and his accomplice on the outside have a plan to influence the tria...more I'm glad I didn't pay for this book. Our apartment building has a bookcase in front of the elevator, and someone in the building must be a Grisham fan, because I've picked up several of his books from the communal bookcase. This is the worst of the Grishams that I've read.

What annoyed me the most was the sheer implausibility of the whole story. The civil tobacco trial itself was plausible enough, but the jury foreman protagonist and his accomplice on the outside have a plan to influence the trial (via the jury verdict) that is so ridiculously far-fetched that it's impossible for anyone with common sense to buy into the idea that this could succeed. Without giving anything away, they've been hopping from tobacco trial to tobacco trial (in other states where big tobacco trials have been scheduled previously), changing names, registering to vote in each new state, and *miraculously* getting called for jury duty right when the big tobacco case was happening, and *miraculously* getting called to be in the jury pool for that particular trial (as opposed to the myriad other civil and criminal trials happening on the same day that also need jurors), only to fall just short of getting seated on a jury -- until this case, when they finally manage to get the protagonist on the jury and put their master scheme into action. The whole plot just unacceptably begs belief, and I lost patience with it rather quickly.

After about the 1/3 point, I was just reading to see how it ended, not because I cared about any of the characters or the outcome of the trial, but just to get answers to the protagonists' true intentions and motivations, which you don't learn until the very end. I think this is why it was such a frustrating book for me. I would prefer to have someone to root for in a book, and when you are not privy to the motivations or goals of the main character (when, in essence, you have no idea whether he's a decent guy or a selfish jerk) you can't feel invested in that character or the story.(less)

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Sep 26, 2011 Shane rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers

This book was quite entertaining, although it wasn't anything special. I was amazed at how much drama Grisham could milk out of a civil lawsuit, and I appreciated it that he didn't try to forceably "spruce-up" the action with random gun battles or kidnappings or something like that. The thriller was in the prose, and that was good.
Unusually, I felt this was a book with no sympathetic hero. Nicholas Easter, the main juror, is conniving, as is his partner Marlee; neither set of lawyers are particu...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this saga, Grisham examines more closely than in his other novels the process of choosing a jury that can best respond to both the plantiff and the defendent without filling the 12 chairs with people who have too much prejudice for either side. There are people hired to help in the jury picking process, and they study every aspect of a potential juror's life. The culprit on trial in The Runaway Jury is the tobacco industry and the plaintiff is someone who lost a family member to lung cancer d...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Remi Immler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wendell Rohr is a lawyer taking on the gun lobby for Celeste Wood. Rankin Fitch is for the defendants. Between them, they have to fight ot see if their is any advantage they can take from the jurors selected. But there is someone on the inside. Nicholas Easter is a juror with a girlfriend, Marlee, on the outside. they have a past together and their own plans for court.
When a day trader is shot where he works, his widow sues a major gun manufacturer and blaming them for his death, since they s...more

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Jul 23, 2010 Jerry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Solid Grisham effort, a little preachy, great end suspense...

We tend to categorize Grisham’s novels into three groups: fast-paced thrillers, like the “Pelican Brief” and “The Firm”; slow paced dramas, like “The Chamber” and “A Painted House”; and a middle group of “message stories” that mix the characteristics of the other two. “Jury” falls into that third class, featuring mostly courtroom drama but with the intrigue of jury tampering and manipulation thrown in for good measure. It’s also a bit...more

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Oct 02, 2009 Lynda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

The Runaway Jury is marked as suspense, but I didn’t think there was much suspenseful about it. Nicholas Easter is selected as a juror in a tobacco trial. He’s a friendly guy with two years of law school behind him and all the jurors respect him and sometimes even look to him to explain what’s going on.

Inside the courtroom, the plaintiff is trying to prove that a man died directly from cigarette smoking. They throw in all sorts of obscure facts about advertising and targetting kids. Things that...more

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Apr 25, 2009 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reviewing a John Grisham book? I know, I can't believe it either. But I've read this book about half a dozen times, and every time, it pulls me in.

I've read an incredible number of John Grisham books. They're always very readable, but sometimes the story seems pretty stretched, or just not very compelling. This book doesn't have those problems. The plot focuses on a civil trial, involving the widow of a cancer patient that is suing a cigarette manufacturer. The twist is that one of the jurors is...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Joey O'toole rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Law & Order fans

The Runaway Jury Book Review
By: Joey O'Toole

The Runaway Jury is a popular legal thriller novel written by John Grisham. It was first published in 1996, and a movie based off the book came out in 2003. Anyways, I think the book was decent, it can get monotonous with all the legal terminology, but nonetheless it was enjoyable. It's a book you really have to pay attention to or else you'll get lost in the plot twists and turns. It's a good example on how much a jury can effect the case, and how muc...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Mikey rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Obviously, I read the book long after it came out and after I had seen the movie, so there was no element of surprise in the plot. The main characters, first had deliberately infiltrated the jury box and had conspired to influence the outcome of a huge civil lawsuit. The main "twist" or "mystery" was that secretly they had a past that made them biased against the defense. Although, what the actual case was about was different in the book then in the movie, that aspect remained the same. Without...more Obviously, I read the book long after it came out and after I had seen the movie, so there was no element of surprise in the plot. The main characters, first had deliberately infiltrated the jury box and had conspired to influence the outcome of a huge civil lawsuit. The main "twist" or "mystery" was that secretly they had a past that made them biased against the defense. Although, what the actual case was about was different in the book then in the movie, that aspect remained the same. Without suspense, knowing all along what few of the characters in the book would know, I still looked forward to how exactly Fitch would find out. Of course, I also did not know exactly what it was that influenced the female character Marlee, to take this course of action but that for me did not lead to an interesting revelation. Overall, it was an easy read.
As far as the debate raised by the author, by way of the case itself, neither side was convincing, nor made one sympathetic to their “cause”. Both were corrupt and willing to pay (or blackmail) any outside connection to any juror to try to influence the ultimate outcome. Of course, the defense went to greater extremes and schemes that are more sophisticated in this regard. Presumably because they had a larger fund and more to lose if a verdict ever went against them. Nevertheless, I personally could never give a dime to anyone bringing a frivolous lawsuit such as this, wasting both time and money not everybody can so easily afford. I do not care how corrupt the companies are. If one smokes and has or develops bad health and first blames it on the smoking then blames someone else for the fact that they smoked, they are an idiot and deserve nothing. The families of the idiot definitely deserve nothing. I can think of two exceptions: One, the company is physically forcing them to smoke. (I am not satisfied with the vague notion of “addiction” as an excuse to blame someone else) Two, if it was sold under the pretense of being a medicine that definitely contributes to a long and healthy life. People disregard the possible consequences of all sorts of things, but they do not think smoking is necessarily healthy. There is no hero in the story. It is not like Easter and Marlee’s grand scheme exposes the corruption that ruins the purpose of our court system to seek “liberty and justice” for all, which I could see as being legitimate. Instead, the main characters simply use the corruption to their own advantage. There is a hint at in the end that they could use the proof of wire transfer to unveil some of the corruption but no real indication that they would or that this was the main goal of the whole plot.
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Aug 24, 2009 Julaybib rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Buku ini sangat tipikal Grisham, memanfaatkan celah dari hukum yang ada untuk membuat suatu cerita yang luar biasa (karena dilebih-lebihkan dan didramatisir tentunya). Intinya, sistem yang ada tidak akan pernah sempurna dan selalu dimanfaatkan oleh orang yang tidak bertanggung jawab atau tidak memiliki etika untuk memaksimalkan keuntungan pribadi. Celah dari sistem yang dipilih oleh Grisham kali ini adalah proses pemilihan dan fungsi juri dalam peradilan.

Diceritakan bahwa di Amerika, kini berdir...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Kathy Stone rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: from-the-library

I really liked this book. There are many horrible characters, but they keep you reading and that is important to me. The subject of the trial is a hard one to read as I do remember tobacco trials from the 1990's. If what Grisham proposes in this novel is really true than all those class action lawsuits are completely frivolous and recent tobacco legislation is completely bogus. I just had to get that out of me. Class action lawsuits and the punitive money trials that spark them irritate me. I fi...more I really liked this book. There are many horrible characters, but they keep you reading and that is important to me. The subject of the trial is a hard one to read as I do remember tobacco trials from the 1990's. If what Grisham proposes in this novel is really true than all those class action lawsuits are completely frivolous and recent tobacco legislation is completely bogus. I just had to get that out of me. Class action lawsuits and the punitive money trials that spark them irritate me. I find it completely ridiculous that people sue for their own bad behavior.

This novel about a tobacco trial involves much more. There is a couple stalking these trials. The man somehow finds a away to hack into county computer databases that have the list of potential jurors and gets called to Jury Duty only when a tobacco case is on the ballot. This is interesting as most people I know who have sat on a jury have sat on trials involving car accidents and nothing so grand as a legislating issue of any kind. besides what kind of a person relishes jury duty anyway. It does not sound fun to me. He has of course changed his name and identity in each city has has been in serving on juries. His girlfriend's parents both died of lung cancer and this is her way of getting back at the industry and making a buck.

I liked the story and the speed at which it read. The character Nicholas Easter/Jeff Kerr I did not like and I kept wanting the judge to realize that this juror was his problem and to declare mistrial. That would have been more fair. Justice is important to me and I do believe that a jury should be impartial. Easter of course is not and is rather manipulative. He has the audacity to get jurors who do not think like he does ousted in very mean-spirited ways. This is not at all how justice should be served. I am not sure of how an ousted juror goes about proving innocence in a high profile, long-term, time-wasting trial. Especially one the culprit is not using a traceable name and who knows what the next alias will be. Grisham does not write sequels and for that I am glad. I like stand alone novels because the story lines are complete. Yes this novel has unanswered questions, but that does not mean the reader needs the answers from the author. Readers can imagine the future of a novel's world for themselves. We know what happened in the big tobacco lawsuits. Vending machines no longer exist, smokers are relegated to being outside on assigned sidewalks away from everyone else, and now we have a myriad array of products to help one quit. That does not mean that everyone involved played the game ethically and this is a novel of questionable ethics.

i liked this book for the questions that it raised. It seems to be that this novel is about the personal reasons behind large monetary settlements. There is no arguing that cigarette smoking is addicting or that most people start as teenagers. It seems that the argument is about medical treatment monies be returned to the survivors. Not one of us knows exactly when or how we will die. We do not know what kind of care we will need or what will be required of us to give while we are here on earth. Being bitter over the loss of a loved one is a waste of time. This novel takes a bitter daughter of lung cancer victims and shows the worse behavior of human nature.

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Jan 10, 2013 Satrajit Sanyal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Runaway Jury, the bad guys are tobacco-company executives, their fat-cat attorneys, and a remarkably sleazy team of behind-the-scenes operatives whose job it is to make sure that cigarette manufacturers never lose a product-liability lawsuit no matter what. No crooked tactic short of murder is beneath them — bribery, blackmail, smears, shakedowns. And that leads to the novel's one real problem: For the longest time it's hard to tell if there are any decent characters in the story at all.

Inde...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Dana Salman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: movies, library-books

After being asked more than a billion times to write the causes and effects of smoking in an essay, or to pursuade someone to stop smoking in an essay, and after having to set up an anti-smoking campaign with the rest of my class for biology last year, when no one in the entire student body smokes (atleast not in the girl section), and moreover after my grandmother passed away from lung cancer that I'm pretty sure was a result of second-hand smoking, and now, having finished this book, I can say...more
After being asked more than a billion times to write the causes and effects of smoking in an essay, or to pursuade someone to stop smoking in an essay, and after having to set up an anti-smoking campaign with the rest of my class for biology last year, when no one in the entire student body smokes (atleast not in the girl section), and moreover after my grandmother passed away from lung cancer that I'm pretty sure was a result of second-hand smoking, and now, having finished this book, I can say that I am completely and utterly sick of anything that reminds me even a little bit of cigarettes and will never go near one for as long as I live.

I picked this book up on a complete whim, really. I was in the library with my friends and was in a kinda depressed mood due to having finished my birthday book much too quickly and now had to wait another year for the next and final instalment to come out, and I really didn't believe I'd find anything of interest. While deliberating over whether I should recheck-out The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to humor myself with for awhile, I caught sight of the John Grisham books and the title of The Runaway Jury just sort of clicked into my head. I think I saw a movie trailer bearing the title on TV once, and I distinctly remembered thinking to myself what an interesting plot it presented. I might have seen it on my cousin's bookshelf once or twice without really concentrating. At any rate, I thought, what the hell, it's time I read something a bit different. The only other books I'd ever read that had courtroom scenes in them was Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, which could hardly count, and My Sister's Keeper, which purely tried to appeal to the emotional side of things. The fact that the topic of debate in this lawsuit was about cigarettes just piqued my interest a bit more - having had to use the same arguments over and over again when writing an essay about smoking I couldn't wait to see how much evidence these fictional lawyers and witnesses could drag out for more than 400 pages (and now I just might use some of them, in the event that, God forbid, I am ever again presented with the task of writing yet another essay about smoking). The back summary didn't really reveal enough for me to guess what kind of book this would be, if not boring, but I knew that was a biased judgment.

So I took it, started reading it, was instantly enraptured by it, had to leave it for a bit while I despaired over the results of my term exams, read again, left it for a few more days while I enjoyed the start of Winter Break, and swept through the final half of the book in the space of two days when my enjoyment predictably turned into boredom and I had nothing else to do. The book wasn't all that hard to read; unlike quite a few other books I'd read this year I didn't have to force myself to keep reading for the sake of just finishing it. My thought process went pretty much like this yesterday night: "Okay, end this chapter then stop... one more chapter... just the beginning of this chapter... oh, there's only two more pages left to this chapter... okay, you know what, I should just slam the book shut right now... after I skim through this chapter..."
This isn't the first book that's provoked this sluggish cycle in me, so it's not that 'wow', but this is the reason I read and I'm glad it was able to satisfy to that extent. There's enough mystery and humor to keep the ball rolling, and although the narration seemed a bit disconnected - that is, devoid of feeling and thus unable to really sync with the reader - it works with the kind of book that The Runaway Jury is. Sure there's a lot of names you need to familiarize yourself with, and sometimes, as expected, the trial can get a bit tedious, but you're not presented the whole thing word-for-word. I'd use the word 'interesting' as my overall analysis for the book but that is just way too thin a description. I need a Thesaurus.

But I'm too lazy to get one right now, so just take my word for it that The Runaway Jury is, not a Must-Read (lets face it, your life does not depend on it), but a Good-Read. I only really gave it four stars because one, I think it should've been a bit longer towards the ending, and two, it's just not the type of book I go gaga over and will only be reading once, not least because I don't want to buy it, cause I don't want to buy it because I don't feel like I'm ever gonna be in the mood to read it again. But I definitely reccomend it. To whom, I dunno. You can make your own choice on that matter, can't you? You learn that after reading this book.(less)

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Dec 05, 2011 Michael Johnston rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first time that I have seen the movie before I've read the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (despite its faults) and I was curious to see if the book would be as interesting. No let down here. The book (not surprisingly) had room for much deeper character studies and the suspense and surprise were just as potent. There are times when I think Grisham would benefit from a sparser story telling, but the added shades in this story were (mostly) to the benefit of plot.

My one complian...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Beverly.reid rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have always wanted to be on jury duty. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed this legal thriller by John Grisham. It is about a widow suing a tobacco company because her husband died of lung cancer and he smoked their cigarettes for thirty years. The verdict, especially a verdict involving large punitive damages, would have ramifications for the entire industry. The “Big Four” companies CEO’s band together and contribute money to help the defense against the plaintiff and resort to some dirty tricks t...more

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Jul 06, 2009 Helynne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this saga, the prolific Grisham examines more closely than in his other novels the process of choosing a jury that can best respond to both the plantiff and the defendent without filling the 12 chairs with people who have too much natural prejudice for either side. The culprit on trial in The Runaway Jury is the tobacco industry and the plaintiff is someone who lost a family member to lung cancer due to smoking. The process by which a certain man-woman team manages to gerrymander a jury in a...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Kelli Sutton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Climax. That is what stuck out to me most about this story. Through out the story you always wanted to know what was up with the main character. He was someone that you just couldn't figure it out. And just when you thought you knew where the story was going bam! the author hit you with the climax.

As a writer I greatly admire Grisham's use of climax. This isn't the first book of his that I have read where he implores this use of climax. As a writer of a story of suspense or a thriller you must...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Jolo Manansala rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, stuff-i-liked-the-most

Thrilling. That's the one word I would choose to describe this book, no matter how cliche the word is. What got me started on reading was the fact that I'm in my third week of summer and I am bored like hell. When I asked my uncle if he had any books I could read, he suggested John Grisham. I have to admit, that crossed my mind but a few years back, I tried reading Playing For Pizza and I couldn't get past the first few chapters. I guess you could blame my then childish mind, because I just love...more

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Jan 10, 2011 Christopher Ryan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My mother in law, who doesn't speak English, gave this book to me. I hadn't read a JG book since I was twelve, but I ended up on the toilet with it, and that's where I read 99% of it. It's a good book for the toilet, because you end up getting your business done sooner. I highly recommend it for that purpose.

Literature it is not. The prose is as flat as old roadkill, the characters dull, vague, and interchangeable, the plot perfect for some Ashley Judd feature film (I assume there is a movie ver...more

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Oct 27, 2010 Steve Giles rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Runaway Jury was a great book about a tobacco trail in Mississippi. The leader of the defense, a Mr. Rankin Fitch, had been involved in many trials like this - and had won every one. He was even able to pull out a mistrial in a case that wasn't working in his favor.
Nicholas Easter became a member of the jury, but could he, with the help of his friend Marlee, ultimately control the jury and force them to vote in honor of the plaintiff? Nicholas and Marlee were previously involved with a tria...more

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May 05, 2009 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am a big John Grisham fan, and I really enjoyed this book. It's my favorite so far of the ones that I've read. It keeps you guessing the whole time, and and it is more humorous than I expected. The characters are complex and interesting, and the legal matter in the story is real and riveting. It deals with the tobacco industry and its lack of compassion for the people that buy their product and suffer many medical problems. It will have you convinced that smoking results in a one-way ticket to...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Genna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great book. Well written and the twist in the end was quite unexpected. The only thing was that it was hard for me to relate to the book in anyways. I guess it's just not a book for chemistry students as the story itself is based on courts, law, manipulating peoples minds and most of all greed. The story did have a good insight of how greedy large industries were when it comes to money but it's not really new news as we've all lived through it at least once in our lives. Story was plot out wel...more

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Mar 24, 2012 Srinath Padmanabhan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Only Die hard Grisham fans.

The Story about a Tobacco Trial where lawyers on both sides along with their experts do what all they can( of course illegal) to get the verdict for their side. On the other hand a women name Marlee is able to predict the unusual events done by the jury and she makes a deal with Fitch, who works for the tobacco company. The major portion of the book revolves around people giving lectures about Cigarettes and Nicotine and how Fitch digs info about all jury members and the cat and mouse game betwe...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Jane Stewart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: legal-suspense-thriller, 5-star-other

Very entertaining. Very worthwhile. I wish more romance authors would write like him, but add romance.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
For another book someone wrote “literary slugger John Grisham returns with a story about...” I thought how true. He is a literary slugger – almost always on the New York Times best seller list. I periodically read John Grisham to remind me of great writing.

I have loved several John Grisham’s books, and this is another one. A number of things had me chuckling with surprise. Th...more Very entertaining. Very worthwhile. I wish more romance authors would write like him, but add romance.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
For another book someone wrote “literary slugger John Grisham returns with a story about...” I thought how true. He is a literary slugger – almost always on the New York Times best seller list. I periodically read John Grisham to remind me of great writing.

I have loved several John Grisham’s books, and this is another one. A number of things had me chuckling with surprise. The ending was feel good which is important to me. The ending had something I didn’t expect. During the story I enjoyed the way bad guy Fitch was frequently surprised and shocked at what Marlee and Nicholas did with the jury. I too was surprised with Marlee and Nicholas.

Grisham is so good at character development. I love how he “shows” things. We see some characters doing smart things and some characters doing stupid things. I was engaged from the start. It was hard to put down. I was always eager to get back to it.

One of the things Grisham does in this story that too many other mystery and suspense authors don’t do is watching Fitch and his people do smart things to solve the mystery. We see how they slowly learn more and more details about Nicholas and Marlee. That was neat. In too many other books the cops/investigators talk to people, try to get evidence, and frequently are helpless victims as well. They don’t do neat things to solve the mystery. They win through luck or accident not skill or smarts.

The book was not perfect, but it was so enjoyable it was still worth 5 stars. The main problem was too much technical talk about nicotine, addiction, cigarettes, and research during the trial. It was tedious a few times. I wish he would have condensed those scenes. But the rest of the book was so good, it was worth it.

STORY BRIEF:
A tobacco company is being sued by the widow of a man who died of lung cancer. Several tobacco companies contribute to the defense fund because a bad verdict for one could start a slew of cases for all of them. They hire Fitch to make things happen. Fitch is in the background. He hires the appropriate local legal counsel for the trial. He also hires investigators and bad guys to do things to influence jury members.

The story starts with lawyers and jury consultants studying every member of the potential jury group. One of the members is Nicholas Easter. They can’t find out much about him other than he is a part-time student and works in a computer store. Nicholas ends up on the jury. Once the trial begins, Marlee contacts Fitch. She tells him in advance things the jury members will be doing, which surprise Fitch when they happen.

DATA:
Unabridged audiobook length: 14 hours 10 minutes. Narrator: Frank Muller. Swearing language: none that I recall. Sexual content: none other than indirect references. Setting: current day mostly Biloxi, Mississippi. Copyright: 1996. Genre: legal suspense thriller.(less)

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Aug 14, 2011 Amanda Roo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I decided to give this book a try, since people are always raving about Grisham and his court room dramas. I found it mildly enjoyable, although a tad predictable and a bit redundant at times. I felt like it dragged on for much to long, and could easily have been trimmed down a few hundred pages and still keep the same story. The characters were well-developed for the most part; there were a few who quietly faded into the background, only to re-appear occasionally as though to remind the reader...more

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About John Grisham

"Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel.

Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of...more "Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel.

Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Realizing he didn't have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990.

One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988.

That might have put an end to Grisham's hobby. However, he had already begun his next book, and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time career—and spark one of publishing's greatest success stories. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a hotshot young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. When he sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, Grisham suddenly became a hot property among publishers, and book rights were bought by Doubleday. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became the bestselling novel of 1991.

The successes of The Pelican Brief, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Client, which debuted at number one, confirmed Grisham's reputation as the master of the legal thriller. Grisham's success even renewed interest in A Time to Kill, which was republished in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Dell. This time around, it was a bestseller.

Since first publishing A Time to Kill in 1988, Grisham has written one novel a year (his other books are The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, A Painted House, Skipping Christmas, The Summons, The King of Torts, Bleachers, The Last Juror, and The Broker) and all of them have become international bestsellers. There are currently over 225 million John Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated into 29 languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas), as was an original screenplay, The Gingerbread Man. The Innocent Man (October 2006) marks his first foray into non-fiction.

Grisham lives with his wife Renee and their two children Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm in Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, VA.

Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his books' protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jur(less)

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