The 18 Best John Grisham Books, Ranked

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The Best John Grisham Books at a Glance

How We Chose

Grisham has published more than 50 books since 1989. We ranked these on four things: how well the story holds up decades later, how little you need to know going in, how much the legal machinery matters to the plot (that is his edge over other thriller writers), and how strong the ending is. Long-running reader favorites count, but we also moved a few later books up because they are better than their reputations. We left out books that only make sense as sequels unless the series is the point.

The 18 Best John Grisham Books, Ranked

1. The Firm (1991)

What it is like: Mitch McDeere graduates near the top of his Harvard Law class and accepts an offer from Bendini, Lambert & Locke, a small Memphis tax firm that pays far more than anyone else and buys him a house and a car. The perks feel like a cage once he notices that no lawyer has ever left the firm alive, and the FBI shows up with an offer he cannot safely accept or refuse.

Who it is for: anyone who has never read Grisham, and anyone who likes stories where a smart person out-thinks two powerful enemies at once. Where to start: right here. The 2023 follow-up, The Exchange, picks Mitch up 15 years later; read it only after this one.

2. A Time to Kill (1989)

What it is like: In Clanton, the seat of fictional Ford County, Mississippi, a Black father named Carl Lee Hailey shoots the two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, in the courthouse, in front of witnesses. Young lawyer Jake Brigance takes a case that most of the county wants him to lose, and the trial pulls in the Klan, the national press and Jake's own family. It is slower and angrier than The Firm, and closer to the bone: Grisham wrote it after watching a real trial as a young Mississippi lawyer, and the anger shows.

Who it is for: readers who want a courtroom novel with a conscience, and anyone who loved To Kill a Mockingbird. It contains a graphic assault early on. Where to start: it opens the Jake Brigance series (order below).

3. Sycamore Row (2013)

What it is like: Three years after the Hailey trial, a dying timber businessman named Seth Hubbard hangs himself and leaves a handwritten will that cuts out his children and gives most of his fortune to his Black housekeeper, Lettie Lang. Jake is named to defend the will. There is no murder, yet every witness shifts the odds, and the reason behind the will lands hard.

Who it is for: fans of A Time to Kill, and readers who think they do not care about probate law. Where to start: it stands alone, but it means more after A Time to Kill.

4. The Rainmaker (1995)

What it is like: Rudy Baylor finishes law school in Memphis with no job, no money and one real case: a family whose son is dying of leukemia after their insurer, Great Benefit, refused to pay for a bone-marrow transplant. Rudy teams up with Deck Shifflet, a paralegal who has failed the bar six times, and walks into court against a corporate defense team. Funny, furious, and the purest underdog story he has written.

Who it is for: readers who want to root for someone, and anyone who has fought an insurance claim. Where to start: a fully standalone book; the 1997 film and the 2025 TV series both change a lot, so read the novel first.

5. The Pelican Brief (1992)

What it is like: Two Supreme Court justices are assassinated on the same night. Darby Shaw, a Tulane law student, writes a speculative memo naming a suspect nobody in Washington has considered, and within days people connected to the memo start dying. She teams up with a Washington Post reporter, Gray Grantham, and the book becomes a chase from New Orleans to Washington.

Who it is for: readers who want more thriller than courtroom; there is almost no trial. Where to start: standalone.

6. The Runaway Jury (1996)

What it is like: A widow sues a tobacco company in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the industry sends Rankin Fitch, a jury consultant who will blackmail anyone to win. What Fitch does not know is that a juror named Nicholas Easter and a woman on the outside named Marlee have their own plan for the verdict. It reads like a con-artist caper.

Who it is for: readers who like twisty plotting and want to see how jury selection and jury tampering actually work. Where to start: standalone. The 2003 film swapped tobacco for the gun industry.

7. The Testament (1999)

What it is like: Billionaire Troy Phelan signs a last-minute handwritten will, then jumps to his death. The will leaves almost everything to an unknown illegitimate daughter, Rachel Lane, a missionary somewhere in the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil. Nate O'Riley, a burned-out Washington litigator fresh from rehab, is sent to find her. Half inheritance fight, half jungle adventure, and his most openly spiritual novel.

Who it is for: readers who want a change of scenery and a redemption story. Where to start: standalone.

8. The Client (1993)

What it is like: Eleven-year-old Mark Sway sneaks a cigarette in the Memphis woods and stumbles on a mob lawyer about to kill himself, who tells Mark where a murdered senator's body is hidden. Now the FBI, an ambitious federal prosecutor and the Mob all want Mark, and he hires the only lawyer he can afford: Reggie Love, a middle-aged attorney who takes his case for a dollar.

Who it is for: readers who like a kid's-eye thriller and a great lawyer character; also a solid choice for older teens. Where to start: standalone.

9. The Street Lawyer (1998)

What it is like: Michael Brock is on track for partner at a huge Washington firm when a homeless man takes his conference room hostage. The incident, and a file Michael was never supposed to see about an eviction his firm handled, pushes him out of corporate law and into a legal clinic for the homeless.

Who it is for: readers who like stories about walking away from money for meaning. Where to start: standalone.

10. The Last Juror (2004)

What it is like: In 1970, a 23-year-old college dropout named Willie Traynor buys Clanton's failing weekly paper. His first big story is the trial of Danny Padgitt, son of a crime family, for a brutal murder; Padgitt threatens the jury on his way to prison, and years later he is paroled. Its heart is Callie Ruffin, the first Black juror in Ford County history.

Who it is for: readers who like character-driven Southern fiction with a crime thread. Where to start: standalone, set in the same town as the Jake Brigance books.

11. A Time for Mercy (2020)

What it is like: In 1990 Clanton, 16-year-old Drew Gamble shoots Stuart Kofer, a sheriff's deputy who has been beating his mother. The judge appoints Jake Brigance to defend him, and the whole town turns on Jake for representing a cop killer. It is the most morally tangled of the Brigance books: everyone in it has a reason to want the verdict they want.

Who it is for: readers who finished Sycamore Row and want more Clanton. Where to start: read the two earlier Jake books first.

12. The Guardians (2019)

What it is like: Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal priest, works for a tiny nonprofit that takes on wrongful-conviction cases. His current client, Quincy Miller, has spent 22 years in a Florida prison for the murder of a lawyer, and the people who framed him are still out there.

Who it is for: readers of true-crime podcasts and fans of Just Mercy. Where to start: standalone.

13. The Broker (2005)

What it is like: On his last day in office, a president quietly pardons Joel Backman, a disgraced Washington power broker, under pressure from the CIA. Backman is flown to Bologna under a new name, taught Italian, and left in the open, because the agency wants to see which foreign government kills him first.

Who it is for: spy-novel readers and anyone who wants a Grisham book that doubles as armchair travel. Where to start: standalone.

14. The Whistler (2016)

What it is like: Lacy Stoltz investigates complaints against judges for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, normally dull work. Then a disbarred lawyer brings her a tip about a judge taking a cut from a casino built on tribal land, protected by organized crime.

Who it is for: readers who want a capable, low-key heroine and a corruption plot. Where to start: standalone; Lacy returns in The Judge's List (2021).

15. The Summons (2002)

What it is like: Law professor Ray Atlee is called home to Clanton by his father, a retired judge, to talk about the estate. When Ray arrives, his father is dead, and hidden in the house is more than $3 million in cash. Ray has to work out where the money came from before someone else comes looking for it, and before his troubled brother finds out.

Who it is for: readers who like a tight, single-question mystery. Where to start: standalone.

16. The Litigators (2011)

What it is like: David Zinc has a breakdown in a Chicago elevator, walks out of his elite firm, and ends up at Finley & Figg, a two-man practice that chases ambulances and fights about lunch. The partners talk him into a mass lawsuit against a drugmaker, which goes wrong in every possible way.

Who it is for: readers who want something lighter, and lawyers who want to laugh at their profession. Where to start: standalone.

17. Camino Island (2017)

What it is like: Thieves steal F. Scott Fitzgerald's original manuscripts from Princeton's library, and the trail leads to Bruce Cable, a charming bookseller on a Florida resort island. A blocked novelist named Mercer Mann is paid to move there and get close to him.

Who it is for: readers who want a beach book, and readers who love books about bookstores. Where to start: it opens a trilogy that continues with Camino Winds (2020) and Camino Ghosts (2024).

18. The Widow (2025)

What it is like: Grisham's first real whodunit. Simon Latch is a struggling small-town Virginia lawyer who takes on a wealthy elderly widow as a client, and when she dies, he is the one charged with murder. Grisham has said he was aiming at the old Perry Mason mysteries and Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, and it shows.

Who it is for: mystery readers trying Grisham for the first time, and longtime fans curious to see him change gears. Where to start: standalone.

The Jake Brigance Books in Order

Jake Brigance is the closest thing Grisham has to a series hero. The novels move forward in time, so read them in publication order:

As of October 2026 there is no fourth Jake Brigance novel announced. The Last Juror, The Summons and the story collection Ford County (2009) are also set in Clanton and Ford County, so they make good side trips if you want more of the town.

Legal Thrillers vs. Grisham's Other Books

Close to ten Grisham books have little or nothing to do with lawyers, and some of them are among his warmest writing. If you love his voice but want a break from depositions:

• A Painted House (2001): a 7-year-old boy on an Arkansas cotton farm in 1952, drawn from Grisham's own childhood. Quiet and very good.
• Skipping Christmas (2001): Luther and Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas and take a cruise, and their neighborhood revolts. A two-hour comic novel; it became the film Christmas with the Kranks.
• Calico Joe (2012): in 1973 a Cubs rookie phenomenon is hit in the head by a pitch, and decades later the pitcher's son tries to make it right. A short baseball novel about fathers and sons.
• Sports novels: Bleachers (2003, high school football), Playing for Pizza (2007, an NFL washout quarterbacking in Parma, Italy) and Sooley (2021, a South Sudanese basketball player in the United States).
• The Camino trilogy: Camino Island, Camino Winds and Camino Ghosts, bookstore-and-beach mysteries.
• The French Illusion (2026): an espionage thriller about a honeymoon kidnapping in France (more below).

Theodore Boone, for younger readers

Grisham wrote seven middle-grade novels about Theodore Boone, a 13-year-old in the town of Strattenburg whose parents are both lawyers and who gives his classmates legal advice. Short, clean, and ideal for ages 9 to 13. In order: Kid Lawyer (2010), The Abduction (2011), The Accused (2012), The Activist (2013), The Fugitive (2015), The Scandal (2016) and The Accomplice (2019).

Grisham's nonfiction

The Innocent Man (2006) tells the true story of Ron Williamson, a former minor-league baseball player in Ada, Oklahoma, who was sentenced to death for a 1982 murder he did not commit and freed by DNA evidence. If you liked The Guardians, read it next. Framed (2024), written with Centurion founder Jim McCloskey, collects ten more wrongful-conviction cases. Grisham's January 2026 letter to readers says he is researching a nonfiction book about Texas death-row prisoner Robert Roberson; no title or date has been announced.

Grisham's Newest Books (2023 to 2026)

John Grisham Movies and TV Adaptations

Confirmed screen adaptations:

• The Firm: film (1993, Tom Cruise); NBC series continuing the story (2012).
• The Pelican Brief: film (1993, Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington).
• The Client: film (1994, Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones), then a CBS series (1995).
• A Time to Kill: film (1996, Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson and Sandra Bullock).
• The Chamber: film (1996).
• The Rainmaker: film (1997, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Matt Damon); USA Network series (premiered August 15, 2025).
• The Runaway Jury: film as Runaway Jury (2003, John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman).
• Skipping Christmas: film as Christmas with the Kranks (2004).
• The Innocent Man: Netflix documentary series (2018).

For more books that became films, see our book adaptations hub.

If You Like Grisham, Read These Next

Grisham's closest relatives are David Baldacci (who started as a lawyer too) and the twisty domestic thrillers that followed Gone Girl. Try our guides to David Baldacci books in order, the best mystery and thriller books, books like Gone Girl, and, for another author with a huge catalog, the best Tom Clancy books. Or browse every list on our best book lists hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best John Grisham book to read first?

Start with The Firm (1991). It needs no background, moves fast and shows Grisham at his most entertaining. If you prefer serious courtroom drama, start with A Time to Kill (1989) instead.

What order should I read the Jake Brigance books in?

Read them in publication order: A Time to Kill (1989), Sycamore Row (2013) and A Time for Mercy (2020). The novella "Homecoming" in Sparring Partners (2022) is an optional extra.

What is John Grisham's newest book?

His newest novel is The French Illusion, an espionage thriller published September 29, 2026. A short prequel, The Law Student, came out as an e-book and audiobook earlier that month.

Which John Grisham books are not legal thrillers?

A Painted House, Skipping Christmas, Calico Joe, Bleachers, Playing for Pizza, Sooley and the Camino Island trilogy have little or no courtroom action. The Theodore Boone books are legal stories written for kids.

How many books has John Grisham written?

More than 50, counting his adult novels, the seven Theodore Boone books, the story collections and his nonfiction books The Innocent Man and Framed.

Which John Grisham books have been made into movies?

The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury and Skipping Christmas (as Christmas with the Kranks) were all filmed. The Rainmaker also became a USA Network series in 2025.