In Santa Felicia County, California, Cully Paul King, the attractive Caribbean captain of a private yacht — a black man, a ladies’ man — is on trial for first-degree murder. Madeline Pherson, a married woman whose body was found in the ocean, wrapped in kelp, was last seen on Cully’s boat, Bewitched. Cully is accused of killing her for her jewelry, which she kept in a green box that has mysteriously disappeared.

But just as perplexing as the circumstances of Pherson’s death are the motives of the people involved in Cully’s trial. Cully’s lawyer, Charles Donnelly, has volunteered to become the defense counsel — for no fee. Eva Foster, the feminist court clerk, takes an unusual interest in the case. Harry and Richie Arnold, a father and son who were Cully’s crewmen, have vastly different stories to tell about the accused. All these characters are caught in webs of suspicions, secrets, and hidden passions, as are the crochety old Judge Hazeltine and Oliver Owen, the racist district attorney.

Intermingled with the court proceedings are scenes from the private lives of the people involved in the trial: Eva Foster combining her work as court clerk with falling in love with the defendant; defense counsel Donnelly trying to cope with a life and a wife he despises; the teenaged crewman, Richie, convincing himself that Cully is his real father; and Cully himself presenting two faces to the world. Was he a promiscuous man with a violent temper when drunk? Or was he a hardworking innocent man drawn into someone else’s tragedy? As expert testimony weakens the case against Cully, it merely strengthens the opinion of his own lawyer, Donnelly, and the judge, Hazeltine, that he is guilty. Free-spirited Cully is not sure which would be worse, to be sent to prison or to be acquitted to face the demands of all the people who want something from him, people to whom he wishes to give nothing in return.

Margaret Millar has been attending murder trials as a court watcher for forty years, but this is the first book she has written about a trial. Although entirely fictional, Spider Webs has all the elements of an actual trial — tragedy, comedy, and the suspense caused by the unpredictable behavior of human beings under stress.

In the final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisiticated satellite surveillance system.Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo place, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive — there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

In 1967 in Greenville, Mississippi, known Klan member Sam Cayhall is accused of bombing the law offices of Jewish civil rights activist Marvin Kramer, killing Kramer’s two sons. Cayhall’s first trial, with an all-white jury and a Klan rally outside the courthouse, ends in a hung jury; the retrial six months later has the same outcome. Twelve years later an ambitious district attorney in Greenville reopens the case. Much has changed since 1967, and this time, with a jury of eight whites and four blacks, Cayhall is convicted. He is transferred to the state penitentiary at Parchman to await execution on death row. In 1990, in the huge Chicago law firm of Kravitz &. Bane, a young lawyer named Adam Hall asks to work on the Cayhall case, which the firm has handled on a pro bono basis for years. But the case is all but lost and time is running out: within weeks Sam Cayhall will finally go to the gas chamber. Why in the world would Adam want to get involved?

In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb... Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America.Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client — even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom... or cost them both their lives.

What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? The answer is in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm, the blockbuster thriller that launched the career of America’s favorite storyteller. It is now fifteen years later, and Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan, where Mitch is a partner at the largest law firm in the world. When a mentor in Rome asks him for a favor that will take him as far as Istanbul and Tripoli, Mitch finds himself at the center of a sinister plot that has worldwide implications. Once again Mitch’s colleagues, friends, and family are targeted. Mitch is a master at staying one step ahead of his adversaries, but this time there’s nowhere to hide.

Theo thought the dangerhad passed, but he’s about to face off against an old adversary: accused murderer and fugitive Pete Duffy.On a field trip to Washington, DC, Theo spots a familiar face on the Metro: Duffy, who jumped bail and was never seen again. Theo’s quick thinking helps bring Duffy back to Strattenburg to stand trial. But now that Duffy knows who he is, Theo is in greater danger than he’s ever been in before. Even when everything is on the line, Theodore Boone will stop at nothing to make sure a killer is brought to justice.

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change.

Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.

He is a judge, in Florida — under Lacy’s jurisdiction.

He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?

The Judge’s List is by any measure John Grisham’s most surprising, chilling novel yet.

The Office of the Public Defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.

As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life — that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts...

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

They watched Danilo Silva for days before they finally grabbed him. He was living alone, a quiet life on a shady street in Brazil; a simple life in a modest home, certainly not one of luxury. Certainly no evidence of the fortune they thought he had stolen. He was much thinner and his face had been altered. He spoke a different language, and spoke it very well.

But Danilo had a past with many chapters. Four years earlier he had been Patrick Lanigan, a young partner in a prominent Biloxi law firm. He had a pretty wife, a new daughter, and a bright future. Then one cold winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car and died a horrible death. When he was buried his casket held nothing more than his ashes.

From a short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial. Then he fled. Six weeks later, a fortune was stolen from his ex-law firm’s offshore account. And Patrick fled some more.

But they found him.

John Grisham’s 1991 novel The Firm drew unprecedented praise from reviewers, booksellers, and readers across America, and it quickly became the top bestseller of the year. Now Grisham is back with The Pelican Brief, an irresistible story that begins with the simultaneous assassinations of two Supreme Court Justices...

Late one October night Justice Abe Rosenberg, at ninety-one the Supreme Court’s liberal legend, is shot in the head while sleeping in his Georgetown home. Two hours later Glenn Jensen, the Court’s youngest and most conservative justice, is strangled, possibly by the same assassin. The country is stunned and baffled; the FBI has no clues.

But Darby Shaw, a brilliant law student at Tulane, thinks she has the answer. Days of digging in the law library’s computers have led her to an obscure connection between the two justices. She fleshes out her beliefs in a meticulous though wildly speculative brief that builds a strong case against a most unlikely suspect.

Her suspect has powerful friends. One evening, outside a New Orleans restaurant, she narrowly escapes an assassin’s car bomb. Someone has read her brief. Someone who wants her dead.

Alone and frightened, Darby disappears into the anonymous shadows of the French Quarter. After reading an alarming story about the assassinations in the Washington Post, she contacts investigative reporter Gray Grantham and convinces him that Washington’s position on the killings amounts to the biggest cover-up since Watergate. Together they go underground, on the run, trying to stay alive long enough to expose the real truth in The Pelican Brief.

Featuring the unique mix of legal intrigue and page-turning suspense that drove The Firm to the top of the bestseller lists, The Pelican Brief is sure to be one of the most popular and satisfying novels of the year.

October 1946, Clanton, Mississippi

Pete Banning was Clanton, Mississippi’s favorite son — a decorated World War II hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning he rose early, drove into town, and committed a shocking crime. Pete’s only statement about it — to the sheriff, to his lawyers, to the judge, to the jury, and to his family — was: “I have nothing to say.” He was not afraid of death and was willing to take his motive to the grave.

In a major novel unlike anything he has written before, John Grisham takes us on an incredible journey, from the Jim Crow South to the jungles of the Philippines during World War II; from an insane asylum filled with secrets to the Clanton courtroom where Pete’s defense attorney tries desperately to save him.

Reminiscent of the finest tradition of Southern Gothic storytelling, The Reckoning would not be complete without Grisham’s signature layers of legal suspense, and he delivers on every page.

Mark, Todd, and Zola came to law school to change the world, to make it a better place. But now, as third-year students, these close friends realize they have been duped. They all borrowed heavily to attend a third-tier for-profit law school so mediocre that its graduates rarely pass the bar exam, let alone get good jobs. And when they learn that their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge-fund operator who also happens to own a bank specializing in student loans, the three know they have been caught up in The Great Law School Scam.

But maybe there’s a way out. Maybe there’s a way to escape their crushing debt, expose the bank and the scam, and make a few bucks in the process. But to do so, they would first have to quit school. And leaving law school a few short months before graduation would be completely crazy, right? Well, yes and no...

Pull up a stool, grab a cold one, and get ready to spend some time at The Rooster Bar.

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

Nate O’Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who’s lived too hard, too fast, for too long. His second marriage in a shambles, and he is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab armed with little more than his fragile sobriety, good intentions, and resilient sense of humor. Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it’s going to be murder.

Rachel Lane is a young woman who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trappings and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil.

Woody Lambert is in trouble. He comes from a broken family, suffers bad grades at school and his older brother, Tony, is on probation for a drug offence. When Woody inadvertently gets caught up with Tony and one of his friends, Garth, cruising around Strattenburg in a beaten-up Mustang drinking beer, one thing leads to another and Garth holds up a convenience store with a fake gun.Though he had no involvement in the crime other than being in Garth’s car, Woody is arrested as an accomplice. He’s going to need serious legal advice to avoid juvenile prison.Enter Theodore Boone: after all, Theo has already decided that he will become the best courtroom lawyer in the state. It’s just that, at the age of thirteen, Theo is years from being a qualified lawyer — and Woody needs help right now...

Thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone knows every judge, police officer, and court clerk in Strattenburg. He has helped bring a fugitive to justice. But even a future star lawyer like Theo has to deal with statewide standardized testing.

When an anonymous tip leads the school board to investigate a suspicious increase in scores at another local middle school, Theo finds himself thrust in the middle of a cheating scandal. With insider knowledge and his future on the line, Theo must follow his keen instincts to do what’s right in the newest case for clever kid lawyer Theo Boone.