John Grisham

After working as a trial lawyer for ten years, John Grisham decided to use his expertise to write about, rather than practice, law. It was a good move: as of last year he had written nearly 40 bestselling legal thrillers and sold some 300 million copies worldwide. ...

John Ray Grisham Jnr was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and attended the Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi School of Law, graduating in 1981. He had originally decided against going to college, but a gunfight among a highway asphalt crew he was working with convinced him to choose the safer option.

After graduation, he set up his own legal practice and he was also elected to serve, as a Democrat, in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990. Meanwhile, his first book, A Time to Kill (1988), had been written and published, but it was the runaway success of the next legal thriller, The Firm, that kick-started an extraordinary writing career. As well as books such as The Pelican Brief, The Painted House and The Client that have topped the bestselling lists and been made into films, Grisham has written sports fiction, comedy, screenplays and, since 2010, the Theodore Boone series for young adults.

Many of John Grisham’s books expose inadequacies in the American legal system and in real life he campaigns – with the Innocence Project – for the wrongfully convicted.