History Creator / JohnGrisham

* FoodPorn: The book "Playing for Pizza" has quite some detailed descriptions of the Italian cuisine virtually all the characters in the novel are head over heels in love with
%%* GambitPileup: Read "The Runaway Jury" for a rather awesome example.

** Normally [[AvertedTrope averted]]. Unlike most legal-related fiction, Grisham's courtroom proceedings tend to be pretty low-key and realistic. The drama and antics occur ''outside'' the courtroom.

* RealityEnsues:
** ''The Testament'' mostly glosses over the fact that the holographic will signed by the deceased Mr. Phelan, [[spoiler: and the one signed by his daughter at the end of the novel,]] will be subject to severe estate taxes, greatly reducing the value of the estate itself. Phelan's lawyer laments the fact that it was done that way, as it means hundreds of millions of dollars lost. [[spoiler: Twice!]]
** In ''The King of Torts'', Clay is advised on how to sue a company for a dangerous product, then receives some off the books advice that short-selling the company on the stock market before he sues might be a good idea, a move that nets him millions of dollars. In the third act, he's investigated for insider trading.

** The protagonist of ''Sooley'' is named Samuel Sooleymon, but no one calls him by anything other than his nickname.

** The plot of ''The Testament'' kicks off when a filthy rich businessman passes over his DysfunctionJunction InadequateInheritor family, and leaves his vast fortune to his previously unknown illegitimate daughter, a missionary in a remote area of Brazil.

** ''Sooley''. [[spoiler:The title character, a South Sudanese refugee who started out redshirting[[note]]sitting out the season, but still practicing with the team[[/note]] his freshman (first) NCAA men's basketball season at North Carolina Central,[[note]]a historically African-American school that in real life has done little of note in that sport[[/note]] was put into the lineup after an injury crisis, and ended it as the face of college basketball, leading NCC to an improbable Final Four appearance, died shortly after that season from a drug overdose. But after his death, his quest to bring his surviving family out of their war-torn country to America succeeded, and his 13-year-old brother is shown to have drained a three-pointer during a basketball practice, possibly foreshadowing his own bright future in the sport.]]

** ''Sooley''. [[spoiler:The title character, a South Sudanese refugee who started out redshirting[[note]]sitting out the season, but still practicing with the team[[/note]] his freshman (first) NCAA men's basketball season at North Carolina Central,[[note]]a historically African-American school that in real life has done little of note in that sport[[/note]] was put into the lineup after an injury crisis, and ended it as the face of college basketball, leading NCC to an improbable Final Four appearance, died shortly after the season from a drug overdose. But after his death, his quest to bring his surviving family out of their war-torn country to America succeeded, and his 13-year-old brother is shown to have drained a three-pointer during a basketball practice, possibly foreshadowing his own bright future in the sport.]]

** ''The Partner''. [[spoiler:Patrick has successfully orchestrated getting off completely scott free for everything that he did in the course of stealing the money, but Eva and the money are both gone and Patrick is left completely broke and alone - it is left ambiguous whether Eva simply abandoned him and ran off with the money or whether she was kidnapped and 'disappeared' by any of the various unsavory characters and companies after the money. Either way, Patrick is completely screwed.]]

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The US President in "The Pelican Brief" is never named. He's just "The President," or "Mr. President" if someone's addressing him. This is particularly noticeable because all of the other highly-placed characters (such as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the FBI Director and the President's Chief Of Staff) do have names.

* PutMeInCoach: ''Sooley'', about a South Sudanese refugee basketball player, is all about this trope. The title character wasn't supposed to have played his first season at North Carolina Central University; he had huge potential, but had played little competitive basketball. After a string of early-season injuries, his coaches "burned" his redshirt, followed by his meteoric rise to become the face of college basketball as he led the Eagles to an improbable Final Four run.

* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: In ''The Testament'', Troy Phelan's long-lost daughter Rachel Lane, a beautiful, saintly missionary (and the only relative he can remotely stand), dies of dengue fever and malaria in the penultimate chapter.

* GenreAdultery: Only five of Grisham's novels aren't legal thrillers; they include ''Skipping Christmas'' (which was later adapted as ''Film/ChristmasWithTheKranks''); ''A Painted House'', a coming-of-age story in Depression-era Arkansas; ''Calico Joe'', about rookie baseball star Joe Castle and the events that cut short his career; and ''Playing for Pizza'', which is about football.

** In ''The Firm'', the crooked law firm that employs the protagonist hires a prostitute tto seduce him and record it so they'll have something to hold over him if he becomes a problem.

* IdiotBall: In ''The King Of Torts'', Clay picks it up and runs with it after the halfway point, unable to see beyond his own needs, just what he promised he would avoid in the first half of the book.

* LaserGuidedKarma: In the final act of ''The King Of Torts'', Clay pays dearly for all the things he did wrong: [[spoiler: his stock market victories are forfeited to prevent prosecution for insider trading; his unbelievably successful mass tort litigation went too fast, because he was blinded by the money, and he finds himself on the receiving end of a mass tort as a result; his callous treatment of his clients as sources of money rather than people with needs gets him viciously assaulted by those same clients]], and on and on.

** In ''The Client'', mafia members play a large part.

* ObfuscatingDisability: Sarge in ''The Pelican Brief''. He's an elderly janitor who works at the White House. He moves slowly, doesn't talk much, and wears sunglasses all the time, so people tend to think that his hearing and eyesight are very bad. Consequently, high-ranking officials don't always watch what they say around him. His hearing is actually fine, so he overhears a great deal of sensitive information. He sometimes leaks stories to the ''Washington Post'', and he always gets away with this, because who in their right mind would suspect ''him?''

* OhCrap: The reaction of [[spoiler: a LOT of people in ''The King Of Torts''. Philo Products, the corporation that bought the company Clay sued, have a massive OhCrap when they find out Dyloft is much more deadly than previously thought. The clients who took Dyloft have an DA OhCrap when they find out that their bladder tumors, previously benign, have become deadly. And the lawyers are aptly summed up by Patton French: "We're screwed!"]]

** ''The Testament'' mostly glosses over the fact that the holographic will signed by the deceased Mr. Phelan, [[spoiler: and by his daughter at the end of the novel,]] will be subject to severe estate taxes, greatly reducing the value of the estate itself. Phelan's lawyer laments the fact that it was done that way, as it means hundreds of millions of dollars lost. [[spoiler: Twice!]]

* VillainousBreakdown: His status as a villain (as opposed to a pawn) is debatable, but [[spoiler: protagonist Clay, by the end of ''The King Of Torts'', has "survived one of the more spectacular breakdowns in the legal profession's history."]]
%%* WaterSourceTampering: The basis of the lawsuit that drives ''The Appeal.''

** The protagonist of ''Sooley'' is named Samuel Souleymane, but no one calls him by anything other than his nickname.

** ''Sooley''. [[spoiler:The title character, a South Sudanese refugee who started out redshirting[[note]]sitting out the season, but still practicing with the team[[/note]] his freshman (first) NCAA men's basketball season at North Carolina Central,[[note]]a historically African-American school that in real life has done little of note in that sport[[/note]] was put into the lineup after an injury crisis, and ended it as the face of college basketball, leading NCC to an improbable Final Four appearance, died shortly after the season from a drug overdose. But after his death, his quest to bring the his surviving family out of their war-torn country to America succeeded, and his 13-year-old brother is shown to have drained a three-pointer during a basketball practice, possibly foreshadowing his own bright future in the sport.]]

** ''Sooley''. [[spoiler:The title character, a South Sudanese refugee who started the 2015–16 NCAA men's basketball season at the end of the bench at North Carolina Central[[note]]a historically African-American school that in real life has done little of note in that sport[[/note]] and ended it as the face of college basketball, leading NCC to an improbable Final Four appearance, died shortly after the season from a drug overdose. But after his death, his quest to bring the rest of his family out of Africa succeeded, and his 13-year-old brother is shown to have drained a three-pointer during a basketball practice, possibly foreshadowing his own bright future in the sport.]]

** Same with ''Sooley'', a non-legal story in which a South Sudanese refugee ends up as the face of college basketball at North Carolina Central, a historically African-American school that in real life has done relatively little of note in the sport.

** Same with ''Souley'', a non-legal story in which a South Sudanese refugee ends up as the face of college basketball at North Carolina Central, a historically African-American school that in real life has done relatively little of note in the sport.

** ''Souley''. [[spoiler:The title character, a South Sudanese refugee who started the 2015–16 NCAA men's basketball season at the end of the bench at North Carolina Central[[note]]a historically African-American school that in real life has done little of note in that sport[[/note]] and ended it as the face of college basketball, leading NCC to an improbable Final Four appearance, died shortly after the season from a drug overdose. But after his death, his quest to bring the rest of his family out of Africa succeeded, and his 13-year-old brother is shown to have drained a three-pointer during a basketball practice, possibly foreshadowing his own bright future in the sport.]]

** The protagonist of ''Souley'' is named Samuel Souleymane, but no one calls him by anything other than his nickname.

* HumanInterestStory: These are at the core of ''The Last Juror''. It was a story on a black family that boasted five college graduates that made the newspaper profitable, and, by the end of the book, the protagonist had done such a story on every person in town.

** In ''The Appeal,'' a phone call from "The Senator" sets into motion a chain of events through which The Trudeau Group (the main shareholder of the affected firm) [[spoiler: escapes a HumiliationConga. Carl Trudeau gets away with having carcinogens dumped into the water supply of a poor Mississippi town, rigging a judicial election to avoid having to pay damages for said dumping, bankrupting the main characters, and purposefully running his company into the ground so he can buy the stock while it's dirt cheap and then make billions when the lawsuits for the illegal dumping are dismissed and the stock rises in value. The novel ends with him being worth $3 billion, and contemplating how to make it into $6 billion.]]

* ObfuscatingDisability: Sarge in ''The Pelican Brief.'' He's an elderly janitor who works at the White House. He moves slowly, doesn't talk much, and wears sunglasses all the time, so people tend to think that his hearing and eyesight are very bad. Consequently, high-ranking officials don't always watch what they say around him. His hearing is actually fine, so he overhears a great deal of sensitive information. He sometimes leaks stories to the ''Washington Post'', and he always gets away with this, because who in their right mind would suspect ''him?''

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: One of the migrant Mexican farmworkers in ''A Painted House'' is known as Cowboy because he wears a cowboy hat all the time. He turns out to be a very important [[spoiler: and very nasty]] character, but we never learn his real name.

* AmbulanceChaser: ''The Rooster Bar'' deals with DUI lawyers who hustle for cases in the waiting room.

* ArmyOfLawyers: Both the plaintiff and the big tobacco company have one of these in ''The Runaway Jury''.
* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: ''The Appeal'' has this happen to the Supreme Court Justice with the highest likelihood of upholding the verdict in question.

** [[spoiler: ''The King of Torts'' ends with Clay losing everything, but ending up with the woman he loves and not in jail.]]
** [[spoiler: ''The Testament'' ends with the protagonist finally expelling his demons and finding something worthwhile to do with his life. But it comes at the expense of the one of only two decent and good human beings presented in the story, who died unknown and unmourned deep in the Amazon rainforest.]]
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: In ''The Associate''.

* GambitPileup: Read "The Runaway Jury" for a rather awesome example.
* GenreAdultery: Only five of Grisham's novels aren't legal thrillers; they include ''Skipping Christmas'' (which was later adapted as ''Film/ChristmasWithTheKranks''); ''A Painted House'', a coming-of-age story in Depression-era Arkansas; and ''Playing for Pizza'', which is about football.

* TheGrinch: The Kranks, of ''Skipping Christmas''. Or at least they're viewed as such by their neighbors, anyway.
* HeadDesk: In ''The Appeal'', this is how F. Clyde Hardin's final scene plays out, when he passes out after another drink.
* HollywoodSilencer: Shows up at the beginning of ''The Pelican Brief''.

** In ''The Firm'', the crooked law firm that employs the protagonist orchestrates one to entrap him so they'll have something to hold over him if he becomes a problem.

* JuryAndWitnessTampering:
** Part of the main plot of ''The Runaway Jury'' (and its film adaptation ''Film/RunawayJury'') has attempts to coerce or incapacitate the jurors in a lawsuit.

** In ''The Appeal,'' a phone call from "The Senator" sets into motion a chain of events through which The Trudeau Group (the main shareholder of the affected firm) escapes a HumiliationConga. Carl Trudeau gets away with having carcinogens dumped into the water supply of a poor Mississippi town, rigging a judicial election to avoid having to pay damages for said dumping, bankrupting the main characters, and purposefully running his company into the ground so he can buy the stock while it's dirt cheap and then make billions when the lawsuits for the illegal dumping are dismissed and the stock rises in value. The novel ends with him being worth $3 billion, and contemplating how to make it into $6 billion.

* TheMafia: In ''The Client'', mafia members play a large part.

* OutdoorBathPeeping: Occurs in ''The Painted House''.

* PassedOverInheritance: The plot of ''The Testament'' kicks off when a filthy rich businessman passes over his DysfunctionJunction InadequateInheritor family, and leaves his vast fortune to his previously unknown illegitimate daughter, a missionary in a remote area of Brazil.

* TragicBigot: One of the female jury members in ''A Time to Kill''. Her boss is black, and unfortunately, he's a BadBoss and a PointyHairedBoss.

* WaterSourceTampering: The basis of the lawsuit that drives ''The Appeal.''
* YoungEntrepreneur: A boy in ''A Time to Kill''.

* ThanatosGambit: In ''The Testament'', the terminally ill Troy Phelan commits suicide and screws his family (whom he hates) out of his eleven billion dollar fortune, giving it all to an illegitimate daughter instead. The kicker is that before his death, he fooled his own family into thinking he had signed a (fake) will that evenly distributed his assets, and even had a team of top-notch doctors examine him and declare him mentally competent. After his death, the doctors' testimony made it next to impossible for his family to legally challenge his will. Not only that, but he tricked his family into digging themselves into debt, since they were expecting a free cash handout after he died.

* ''Film/TheGingerbreadMan'' (based on an unpublished Grisham manuscript)

* TakeThat: The first few chapters of ''The Testament'' are the suicidal MagnificentBastard Troy Phelan's version of this to his greedy, shiftless, TooDumbToLive family.

** ''The Partner''.