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The Associate

by John Grisham

3.40 · rating details · 14,343 ratings · 2,167 reviews

If you thought Mitch McDeere was in trouble in "The Firm," wait
until you meet Kyle McAvoy, "The Associate"
Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father's small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of "The Yale Law Journal," and his future has limitless potential.
But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an ...more

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published January 27th 2009 by Doubleday (first published 1994)

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Feb 02, 2009

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: books-i-own

I was so disappointed in Grisham's latest work. He took more than half the book to create this wonderfully detailed plot and then three chapters to close the book. Three chapters in which he untwisted some of the elements of the plot, didn't resolve anything, and quit to early. I felt so unfulfilled at the end.

It kills me that his latest books haven't been up to par with his earlier works. In the beginning, his books were well-crafted and well-executed. After he began seeing his...more

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Mar 02, 2009

Michael rated it

Shelves: read-in-2009

Good books don't necessarily have to provide all the answers to every plot thread introduced into them. We want our characters to feel like they have lives beyond the confines of the printed page and that their story exists before, during and after the book we're reading. But a good book should at least provide the reader with some sense of closure and not the feeling like an editor was standing over the writer, pointing out that he or she had x-number of pages left or he or she was slowly rea...moreGood books don't necessarily have to provide all the answers to every plot thread introduced into them. We want our characters to feel like they have lives beyond the confines of the printed page and that their story exists before, during and after the book we're reading. But a good book should at least provide the reader with some sense of closure and not the feeling like an editor was standing over the writer, pointing out that he or she had x-number of pages left or he or she was slowly reaching the word count for the novel and that wrapping up the book soon would be a good idea. There should be some sense of closure, not just a sense of wrapping things up.

There's a distinct lack of closure to John Grisham's new novel.

"The Associate" spents 275 pages setting up the situation Kyle McAvoy faces. Years ago, his roommates at a frat party took advantage of a young woman, while she may or may not have been passed out. The young girl had a reputation and when she tried to press charges for rape, the investigation hit a quick dead end and the matter was dropped. Or so it would appear. While Kyle wasn't one of the participants, he was in the room when it happened. Now, years later video from a camera phone has surfaced in the hands of men who want Kyle to do thier bidding. He is to accept a job with a high-prestige law firm and spy on them for these men.

This mysterious group seems to have their fingers in a lot of pies an a lot of power, though it's never explained why or if they're manipulating certain aspects of Kyle's life and that of his friends. They hold the tape over Kyle's head throughout the story, saying that while it may not lead to charges it will certainly ruin the life of Kyle and his friends.

Kyle is pressed into service in an impossible situation and slowly begins to try and find a way out of it. By reading spy novels, he routinely sheds those tailing him and begins to slowly fight back, forming a plan of his own. Meanwhile, he's got the soulless first year job at a law firm and maybe a connection with a fellow female associate.

It's a lot to take in and Grisham does a nice job of keeping the plot moving for the first 300 or so pages. But it's right around a huge turning point in the novel that things slowly being to unravel. I won't say the turning point, but if you've read the book, you can probably peg it. It involves one of the group of the accused who went to Hollywood seeking his fame and fortune. Suddenly, things kick into a different gear and Kyle makes some decisions. These are things that could and should change the story and ratchet things into a higher gear, adding to the suspense and making the pages turn faster. And they do...except these things all happen 30 or so pages before the novel ends.

And the novel just wraps up. In one of the more unsatisfying endings I've read in a while, Grisham just finishes the story. In the end, justice isn't really served and you can see how Grisham is trying to create a morally ambigious ending, but yet it just doesn't feel satisfying. Kyle isn't a purely innocent character, but it'd be nice if it felt like some or any of the bad guys got what was coming to them in the end. Instead, it's one of those--hey, life sucks but what are you going to do? endings that left me frustrated and wondering where the rest of the book was.

We could at least know that Kyle got the girl or something. A hint, anything besides what we go.

And that's a shame. Because Grisham works hard in creating Kyle and allowing us to identify with him and feel sympathy for him as the net closes in around him.

This could have been great Grisham. Instead it's just mediocre Grisham. (less)

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Feb 18, 2009

babyhippoface rated it

Shelves: grown-up-stuff

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 02, 2009

Jeffrey rated it

Recommends it for: Grisham fans, legal thriller fans

Shelves: thriller, read-in-2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This novel is not precisely a reworking of Grisham's famous first huge bestseller "The Firm", but some might jump to that conclusion because the setting is similar. If you recall, in The Firm, the partners were mobsters. In this novel, the firm in question is merely an oppressive giant New York law firm, probably no different in its treatment of first year associates than many of the giant white shoe firms in New York now. As an aside, Grisham is sure to throw in his usual barbs abou...moreThis novel is not precisely a reworking of Grisham's famous first huge bestseller "The Firm", but some might jump to that conclusion because the setting is similar. If you recall, in The Firm, the partners were mobsters. In this novel, the firm in question is merely an oppressive giant New York law firm, probably no different in its treatment of first year associates than many of the giant white shoe firms in New York now. As an aside, Grisham is sure to throw in his usual barbs about the law practice, in this case having one of the more decent partners reveal to the young Kyle that he "estimates his billing", overcharges clients for meals and treats his young colleagues as chauffers, but these are only petty comments about the book.

The real story in this novel is that an unscrupulous spy involved in industrial espionage has found a way to make Kyle, follow his orders. Kyle, the main character, is in his final year of law school at Yale. He is the son of a local lawyer (who as is typical is lauded by Grisham), and is the prestigious editor of the Yale Law Review. As a second year law student he worked for the giant New York law firm, which has offered him a job, but Kyle has no interest in this position as he intends to join a smaller firm where he can help people. However, he is approached by some men who appear to be agents of the FBI who want him to meet a Pittsburgh police officer Bennie, who they claim has a video showing that Kyle witnessed and/or participated in a rape on campus when he was a senior at his fraternity during his last year at college. Kyle sees the video which appears to be condemning.

Bennie, the fake cop, tells Kyle that if he does what Bennie wants, Kyle will not be indicted and the video will not be released. What Bennie wants is for Kyle to provide him with sensitive material that is being held as an exhibit in a pending law suit about a supersonic jet. He orders Kyle to back out of his planned next law job and take a job with the large New York law firm. Of course, Kyle, the underdog ingeniously plans out a way to escape this nefarious scheme. The ending is a little too pat for me, but the fun in this book is following Kyle's adventures in spydom, his life and the life of his fellow first year students and the hell that is a first year associates lot in a huge law firm.

Except for the ending, this novel is not bad and frankly is a lot better than his baseball novel set in Italy.(less)

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Feb 01, 2009

Carol rated it

There must be a lot of pressure on authors who've had a series of best-sellers of a similar popular genre. Some authors come up with decent fresh ideas for the next adventure of their hero or hero-type, and some struggle after the first few books. Grisham seems to be struggling. He's back with one of his early formulas, young lawyer trapped into a compromising situation by a bad guy. This time, the set-up is less plausible than in the early novels. Sure, we readers suspend disbelief, but we don'...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Nick rated it

Shelves: authors_john_grisham, fiction, thriller, read-2009

No spoiler alert needed because there are no spoilers. Every aspect of this novel has been done in earlier works of 'legal fiction' by Grisham, and sections bolted together for this new novel. It was enjoyable and a prototypical Grisham read, but there was absolutely nothing new under this literary sun...

Grisham should parody the creation of the next Grisham novel, where a bright young legal graduate is coerced into a secretive law firm. On his first day, he is spirited into a baseme...more

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Feb 10, 2009

Shannon rated it

If you like Grisham's earliest works (the Firm, the Pelican Brief, etc.) you'll probably like this one too. It's fast paced, about a young lawyer in big firm who is in trouble. However, I didn't like this one as well as some of the others because I thought the ending was VERY unsatisfying. Grisham didn't tie up the ends the reader is dying to find out at the end of the novel. Darn! I'll be interested in what others say about it

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Feb 14, 2009

Leah rated it

In most circumstances, the "quick reads" or "beach books" are so lame-brain and cornball that I skim the book in a half-hour (i.e. James Patterson) However, I have read (really read, not skimmed) every one of Grisham's books. I enjoy Grisham because his stories are the same. You have the same kind of characters, the same dialogue, but it's always suspenseful. You always want to know what's going to happen next. I am comforted by his predictability, for some odd reason.

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Mar 08, 2009

Karen rated it

I was thoroughly caught up in this book from page 1 and could barely put it down until the last page. Very exciting even though at times I wanted to yell at Kyle, the main character, not to fall for the blackmail scheme laid out before him. For anyone who has been to a few too many drinking parties in college, this will bring back those memories of regrets and situations that could have gotten out of hand. Kyle was involved in the latter, and thought it was all behind him, until he is approac...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Roberta rated it

Shelves: legalthriller

The book read fast as do most of Grisham's novels. I enjoyed most of the book except for the ending. I felt that Grisham could have tied things up a bit better with about 50 more pages.

The main character in this novel is a Yale law student who is blackmailed into taking a job with a huge New York law firm because of a mistake he made in college. We find out exactly how he does his best to avoid breaking the law in this book. Written in the vein of the Firm, but not as good.

...more

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Apr 05, 2011

Nyra rated it

· review of another edition

SINOPSIS:

"Kyle Mc Avoy creció prácticamente en el pequeño bufete de su padre, en la tranquila ciudad de York, Pennsylvania. Saco excelentes notas durante toda la carrera de Derecho y fue elegido editor jefe del Yale Law Journal. Le esperaba un brillante futuro profesional.
Pero Kyle tambien tiene un secreto, un episodio de su vida de estudiante que le gustaria olvidar. Un secreto que acaba en manos de gente que le presiona para que acepte un puesto que no le gusta, aunqu...more

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Feb 08, 2009

Sesh rated it

With every book, Grisham gets worse. I keep telling myself I should stop reading the garbage he his dishing out, but I keep going back just to find out how bad it can get. What can I say? I give one star because for effort, just to type the words in. Otherwise there is not much to recommend in this book. The plot is weaker than Bud Lite, the ending is anti-climactic.

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Feb 06, 2009

Jim rated it

As usual with Grisham, I can't put a book down for very long until I've picked it up again. I would hope that there might be a follow-up to this one so I can learn about what happens to the "bad guys".

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Feb 09, 2009

Jim rated it

This is the slowest Grisham book I've read -- and I've read them all. It's tedious. It does not read like Grisham. There's almost no action until the end of the book, and then there's not much. What a disappointment.

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Feb 17, 2009

Betty marked it as to-read

Can't wait to read this - I've read all of his other books and saw him interviewed on the Today show the other morning. Looks like a good one!

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Feb 22, 2009

Terrie rated it

Shelves: adult-law

The most anti-climactic book ever. What happened to the Grisham I used to love?

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Aug 08, 2011

John Mcconahey added it · review of another edition

Grisham built his reputation by giving readers a reason to cheer for his protagonists. Intriguing tales focused on complex plots and were described in artful narrative. That happens with this book too and gives us a peek at the life facing some corporate attorneys fresh from prestigious schools.

Kyle McAvoy was an undergraduate at Duquesne University when a party in his apartment resulted in rape accusation against him and several of his roommates, but the police found insufficient evidence to ...more

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Mar 12, 2009

Claire Grasse rated it

Although I only gave this two stars (for its two-dimensional quality), that's twice as many as I've BEEN giving John Grisham for his last decade of writing). I'm hopeful that this means that Grisham is on a climb back up to the quality of plot he used to write in his earliest days (quality that seemed to grind to a painful halt soon after The Testament).

*****SPOILER ALERT*******

This book is really The Firm, reworked. The first 3/4 of the book has the protaganist Kyle h...moreAlthough I only gave this two stars (for its two-dimensional quality), that's twice as many as I've BEEN giving John Grisham for his last decade of writing). I'm hopeful that this means that Grisham is on a climb back up to the quality of plot he used to write in his earliest days (quality that seemed to grind to a painful halt soon after The Testament).

*****SPOILER ALERT*******

This book is really The Firm, reworked. The first 3/4 of the book has the protaganist Kyle hemming and hawing about how NOT to compromise himself by handing over the documents. There is a lot of time wasted here when not much really happens, except that Kyle slams a lot of doors and attends a lot of ball games where he speaks out of the side of his mouth to his friend Joey, who eventually walks away from the whole mess and is not even involved in the final solution. IMHO, this kind of "filler character" and "filler activity" (think: the big gambling angle in the The Summons) is a waste of the reader's time, as it accomplishes very little toward the end result.

Kyle's anger too, is unconvincing. His relationships with Olivia and Dale are two-dimensional and unconvincing. Also unconvincing is why he is so worried about the "rape video." The video in no way implicates him in the rape, and if he's really planning on going into "public defense" type of law, he's not exactly going to be the kind of high-roller who has to worry about his image. One expects Kyle, even as a 3rd year law student, to know enough law to realize that shouting "extortion!" would put a quick end to the matter. He'd suffer a bit of public embarassment, but then again, he didn't DO anything in the video to implicate himself.

Meh. Frustrating!

The end of the book is just as frustrating. Kyle doesn't really do anything clever to extricate himself from mess he's in. Remember Mitch, in the The Firm? He really stuck it to the b******s who had him in a corner, and left the reader cheering. Kyle just runs to daddy, who bails him out by talking nice to the other side.

Jeepers, Mr. Grisham, I'm starting to lose faith in you.(less)

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Mar 07, 2009

Darbyscloset rated it

Recommends it for: Mystery Lovers

Shelves: mystery

The Associate

John Grisham’s latest book is “The Associate”, which I just finished reading. I always enjoy Grisham’s work and so I was eager to read this book once it was released to the public.
Grisham’s previous release was “The Appeal”. The first part of this book I was a little disappointed, for I thought he was rewriting the same story as in “The Appeal”, yet with different characters. I should of known better for just as the background was being laid out for the reader...more

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Mar 02, 2009

Chuck rated it

This is the best Grisham in years. It gets back to what he did well in his earlier fiction, but it is still fresh.

Kyle McAvoy is about to graduate from law school, and had planned to work in the non-profit world and reject corporate law. But two men appear who have manufactured an "incident" from his past--not true, but a public accusation would have been enough to ruin his life. So Kyle is forced to accept a job at a law firm which is embroiled in a law suit over who ow...more

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Feb 20, 2009

Randy rated it

Gosh, it seems like so long ago since I bought this novel called A Time To Kill by John Grisham. Now, some 20 novels later, he's penned some I'd rather forget but he remains one of the few I buy hardbound.

The Associate is the usual Grisham. By that I mean, the guy is always a helluva writer, he's always got a character you love, a way with a story that compells you to read on, an interesting setup. Any Grisham is worth a read. Even a bad Grisham is hands a feet above most of the law ...more

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Sep 23, 2011

Marie-jo Fortis rated it

Grisham is back, state some critics. Not so fast, claim others.

The plot: Kyle McAvoy is a top graduate from one of the top law schools --Yale. He can work for any brilliant legal firm he chooses. Only other people choose for him and ask him to spy and report the secrets of a prestigious law firm in Manhattan. How can these people (this organization?) make such demands? They have in their hand the video of an alleged rape. If Kyle was not a participant in such a crime, he was in the roo...moreGrisham is back, state some critics. Not so fast, claim others.

The plot: Kyle McAvoy is a top graduate from one of the top law schools --Yale. He can work for any brilliant legal firm he chooses. Only other people choose for him and ask him to spy and report the secrets of a prestigious law firm in Manhattan. How can these people (this organization?) make such demands? They have in their hand the video of an alleged rape. If Kyle was not a participant in such a crime, he was in the room when it happened. He feels trapped.

The people he spies for first claim to be the police, then the police working with the CIA. But it more likely is some type of criminal organization. Or is it?

Little by little, Kyle plans to trap the men who are blackmailing him into betraying the firm he's working for. He consults a lawyer in Manhattan who is friends with some CIA agent. It's a dangerous game, but it's the only way out.

Everything is set, but when the CIA, with Kyle's help, are about to arrest the criminals, these manage to escape beforehand, and the readers never know who they really are, for whom they work, or if they actually are CIA or another government organization.

My immediate reaction was to find such ending anticlimactic, an easy way out for Grisham. But I soon dismissed such response. There is a motif behind the thriller plot itself. And it's big city against small town. Anonymity versus personality. Absence versus existence. Or, if you prefer, pretense versus real life.

Frankly, Grisham made me feel good about living in a small town, where anonymity is seldom part of the game and nearly everyone knows your name. If there is pressure, it never goes as far as crushing one's personality to the point of being robotic. And that's what Grisham's Manhattan lawyers, CIA agents and criminals are. Dressing the same, acting the same, interchangeable.

In other words, the big danger is losing one's identity, being another suit. Giving in to pressure instead of questioning its necessity.

That's how I read this Grisham novel. I don't know if it's his best. But it's certainly his most ambitious. (less)

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Aug 04, 2011

Lars-christian Elvenes rated it

I was somewhat warned beforehand by the dismal reviews on amazon, but I decided to take a chance on it. Execting it to be horrible might at least improve it a little bit, and it probably did.

Spoiler:

This is a story of a young lawyer-to-be (he passes the bar during the book), who falls prey to some bad guys and gets blackmailed into a job he doesn't want.

All in all this has the potential for a good story, but as you read on you realize that something needs to happen, and fast, because the book i...more

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Jul 23, 2011

Josh rated it

· review of another edition

This should have a higher rating. Grisham was so close to nailing this one that it's really pretty frustrating. I liked the book, but I should have liked it a lot more, except for a few issues that downgraded the whole affair for me.

1. The story resolves itself too rapidly for my tastes. It's one thing to start running things at a breakneck pace once all the players are in place and the action really starts to kick in to gear, another thing to just sort of draw things to a stop just as...more

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May 23, 2011

Miss Leacock rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 05, 2011

Kyra rated it

Shelves: mystery

This is the 2nd incredibly disappointing book I've read by Grisham now. Unless he plans to write a sequel to actually end the book there is no excuse for this. It's like he got bored 3/4 of the way through & gave up & sent it to his editor or he didn't know how to end it so he just gave up - thinking we'd buy anything with his name on it because his first few books were pretty good.

An elaborate twisty set up with many characters and then NOTHING HAPPENS. I'm ok with "bad guys ...moreThis is the 2nd incredibly disappointing book I've read by Grisham now. Unless he plans to write a sequel to actually end the book there is no excuse for this. It's like he got bored 3/4 of the way through & gave up & sent it to his editor or he didn't know how to end it so he just gave up - thinking we'd buy anything with his name on it because his first few books were pretty good.

An elaborate twisty set up with many characters and then NOTHING HAPPENS. I'm ok with "bad guys getting away". I'm ok with "we may never know what shadowy organizations or gov't offices they worked for". But you can't just stop and say "we'll never know any of it". Why did I bother reading the book and the whole set up? So you could laugh and say "oh well this is more realistic anyway".

The main character is a priveleged Ivy league educated southern Caucasian male who is the stereotypical frat boy, whose stupidity bites him in the ass & puts him in a bad spot, so I had limited interest in him. ESPECIALLY, at the end where he decides that despite pissing off an operation that had clearly spent at least a year, millions of dollars, had ruined the lives of random people for the set up & had killed people - all to get the info. from him - he didn't think he needed any protection or they wouldn't revenge kill him for blowing that? I *really* wanted him to get shot at the end (maybe during a hunting session with his dad, since that distasteful "sport" was also pointlessly included in the book as more page filler).

Most of the other characters were just as bad.
*Frat Boy #1- stereotypical LA actor wanna be on drugs/drink turns pious AA "Born-again" (which reminds me Grisham seemed to make a big deal about the main character stopping drinking because he couldn't handle it, to picking it up through the stress - I expected ramifications of this change - would he turn alcholoic, would being drunk make him miss a crucial step).
*Frat Boy #2- the quasi-rapist whose getting married who just drops out in the last quarter of the book & is never heard from again.
*Generic pointless Girlfriends - #1 just disappears. #2 is just there for him to have a boring love interest as he struggles & then just drops off at the end. She has no part in the conspiracy, in the ending or anything, except as page filler.
*Random lawyers - Again, seemed like just filler. Dickish partners working the newbies. Newbies all exahuasted. One of them is a mole, but we never find out who.
*Confused girl who may or may not (according to Grishman) been a victim or maybe just a predator.
I REALLY don't like the "it wasn't really rape" storylines. That's not something people generally make up. So making it all "she was slutty & just felt bad" thus perpetuating rape myths - pissed me off a lot.(less)

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Apr 10, 2011

Stephanie rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Any Grisham book is always a solid read. This one was no different although I took major offense to how the author (and protagonist) handled the rape of Elaine. This is the reason I'm giving this book one star.

I was having some serious issues with this as Grisham compares the case of college co-ed Elaine - who was in a compromising situation with our protagonist Kyle and his friends - to the heavily publicized Duke lacrosse case. Both cases were dropped, however, in the Duke scenari...more

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Jan 03, 2011

Brittany Jedrzejewski rated it

“It’s Criminal!”

I am a positive person and I feel bad about putting negativity out there, especially in a book review. I must say, however, that The Associate by John Grisham was a terrible book. I hadn’t read anything by Grisham since The Firm and The Pelican Brief while in high school. At the time, they seemed like somewhat smart novels. I came across The Associate at Half Price Books and thought “why not?” Boy, has time changed the author—and not for the better. My mom put it bes...more

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Nov 16, 2010

Cindy Vine rated it

I was looking forward to this, not having read John Grisham for a while. Normally, I am caught up from page 1, but for some reason the story seemed to drag and it took me until three quarters of the way through to be gripped to read for greater lengths of time. The plot was a bit same-old, same-old, not fresh at all. The ending was very different though, in that there wasn't one. There was no closure, no sense of satisfaction, in fact I double-checked to see that the last few pages hadn't co...more

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Jul 10, 2010

eyup rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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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 ...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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