Автор - John Grisham

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 episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn’t want — even though it’s a job most law students can only dream about. Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed. With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains — from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle’s “cubicle” at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country — and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, The Associate is vintage Grisham.

The Brethren

The confession

The firm

Hard to believe, but there was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," and the idea of a law firm controlled by the Mafia was an outlandish proposition. This intelligent, ensnaring story came out of nowhere--Oxford, Mississippi, where Grisham was a small-town lawyer--and quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, with good reason. Mitch McDeere, the appealing hero, is a poor kid whose only assets are a first-class mind, a Harvard law degree, and a beautiful, loving wife. When a Memphis law firm makes him an offer he really can't refuse, he trades his old Nissan for a new BMW, his cramped apartment for a house in the best part of town, and puts in long hours finding tax shelters for Texans who'd rather pay a lawyer than the IRS. Nothing criminal about that. He'd be set for life, if only associates at the firm didn't have a funny habit of dying, and the FBI wasn't trying to get Mitch to turn his colleagues in. The tempo and pacing are brilliant, the thrills keep coming, and the finish has a wonderful ironic flourish. It's not hard to see why Grisham changed the genre permanently with this one, and few of his colleagues in a very crowded field come close to equaling him

The Innocent Man

Ronald Keith Williamson's early life appeared charmed. A successful school and college baseball player, he seemed to have a world of opportunity at his feet. But, after injury put paid to his sporting career, he slowly began to show signs of mental illness, and drifted into a life of petty crime and misdemeanour. When in 1982 a local girl was found raped and murdered, he was in prison serving time for kiting cheques. Whilst there, another prisoner, looking for release, alleged he had overheard him confessing to the killing, and Williamson was arrested for the crime. What followed was one of the most appalling cases of a miscarriage of justice America has ever seen. From the point of his arrest, Williamson was taunted by prison guards who held back the medicines he was prescribed to control his psychiatric problems, meaning that when it came to trial he was distressed and not lucid. At the trial itself he was never given fair representation – his lawyer was not only blind, but had also never handled a criminal case before, and never entered a plea on Williamson's behalf, that he was not fit to stand trial. Williamson was found guilty, and sentenced to death. Despite many appeals, he was final given a date for his execution – Sept 24th 1994. It was only due to the last minute intervention by a group of appellate lawyers working on his behalf, who sought a writ from the district court judge, that he was given a stay of execution of five days. Here, for the first time, Grisham delves into this story, tracing the man, the case and the trial, and showing how, thanks to this team of dedicated legal professionals, the real truth about the case came to light. Evidence surfaced to completely exonerate Williamson, and he was freed in April 1999. He later won a settlement in court for his conviction, but sadly passed away last year.

The Litigators