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The Runaway Jury

by John Grisham

The Runaway Jury is a 1996 legal thriller by John Grisham, his seventh novel. It unfolds in Biloxi, Mississippi, where the widow of a man who died of lung cancer sues a powerful tobacco company. As jury selection begins, a… more

First published 1996 · 414 pages · English

3 quotes ★ 4.03 (317,393) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

Life is short..Live to the fullest..
She was pondering the option of law school, the great American baby-sitter for directionless postgrads.
She looked great in tight jeans and short skirts, she looked great in anything or nothing, really, but for the moment she wanted no one to notice her.

Did you know?

  • The Runaway Jury was John Grisham's seventh novel.
  • In the original novel the lawsuit targets a tobacco company after a smoker's death from lung cancer.
  • The 2003 film adaptation changed the defendant from a tobacco company to a firearms manufacturer.
  • The novel is set in Biloxi, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a frequent setting in Grisham's work.
  • Publishers Weekly reported a first printing of 2.8 million copies.

About John Grisham

John Grisham is an American novelist and former attorney and Mississippi state legislator, widely regarded as a leading author of legal thrillers whose books have sold hundreds of millions of copies. He rose to fame with novels such as The Firm and The Pelican Brief.

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About the book

The Runaway Jury is a 1996 legal thriller by John Grisham, his seventh novel. It unfolds in Biloxi, Mississippi, where the widow of a man who died of lung cancer sues a powerful tobacco company. As jury selection begins, a mysterious juror named Nicholas Easter positions himself on the panel while his partner Marlee makes contact from the outside with Rankin Fitch, the ruthless consultant the tobacco industry has hired to fix the verdict. What follows is a cat-and-mouse contest over who truly controls the jury.

At its core the novel dramatizes the machinery behind high-stakes American litigation: jury consulting, surveillance, bribery, and the vast money that industries will spend to sway twelve ordinary people. Grisham contrasts the theater of the courtroom with the quieter manipulation happening in jury rooms and back channels, and he probes questions of corporate accountability, personal conviction, and how easily justice can be bought or steered.

A bestseller with a reported first printing in the millions, The Runaway Jury reinforced Grisham's dominance of the legal-thriller genre in the 1990s and was praised as a thriller with genuine ideas beneath its suspense. It was adapted into the 2003 film Runaway Jury, which shifted the target of the lawsuit from a tobacco company to a firearms manufacturer while keeping the novel's central battle of wills.

Key characters

  • Nicholas EasterStealth juror who maneuvers himself onto and then leads the jury
  • MarleeEaster's partner who negotiates with the defense from outside the courtroom
  • Rankin FitchRuthless jury consultant hired by the tobacco industry to secure a verdict
  • Wendall RohrLead attorney for the plaintiff
  • Celeste WoodWidow and plaintiff whose husband died of lung cancer

Book details

First published
1996
Length
414 pages
Reading time
25 hours
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
4.03 (317k ratings) →

Movie & TV adaptations

  • IMDb
    Runaway Jury 2003

    Film directed by Gary Fleder, starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Weisz; changes the defendant to a gun company

If you liked this, read…

  1. 1
    The FirmAnother Grisham legal thriller pitting an ordinary person against a powerful, corrupt institution
  2. 2
    A Time to KillGrisham's courtroom drama built around a charged Mississippi trial
  3. 3
    The VerdictA courtroom-centered story about litigation against a powerful defendant
The Runaway Jury The Runaway Jury John Grisham Get the book
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