Word: grisham
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...John Grisham's 1991 thriller, The Firm, offered an inside-the-ant-colony view of lawyers being loathsome, a redundant concept that made him rich and had readers roaring for more. His subsequent page turners wandered from this antijuridical obsession to a more casual sort of barrister bashing that occasionally had other things on its mind. In The Runaway Jury (Doubleday; 401 pages; $26.95), obsession is back...
That pretty much narrows it down, in terms of Grisham's latest set of villains. The new novel's plot involves a high-stakes civil suit against Big Tobacco, brought by the forces of what might be called Big Health, in the name of a widow whose poor slob of a husband smoked himself to death. The tobacco cartel has won every such suit up to this one, but now the odds are beginning to tip. This is why the novel's companies have set up an eight-figure war chest with a private cia of thugs and slinkers...
...sure, let's believe that too. Where Grisham really stumbles is in grafting an adventure tale's hero and heroine--both young and good looking, she slightly smarter than he--onto the stiff frame of a civil trial. The awkward premise is that this pair of secretive anti-tobacco activists manages to plant him on the jury. He then easily takes control, getting an exceedingly dim judge to banish balky jurors and drugging another uncooperative panelist himself. She, meanwhile, remains offstage (not an asset in the sort of novel in which at least a modest degree of bodice ripping...
With the arrival of every John Grisham thriller comes the inevitable question: What exceedingly bankable, cute-as-a-button superstar will take on the role of beleaguered but principled defense counsel, first-year associate or eager law student in sweaty peril? In July the film version of Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, arrives in movie theaters with Sandra Bullock. Since movie versions of The Firm (Tom Cruise), The Client (Susan Sarandon) and The Pelican Brief (Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington) have cumulatively grossed close to $600 million worldwide, adaptations of the rest of the canon...
...asking price has soared, so has his involvement. Grisham had approval of script, director and cast during the making of A Time to Kill (while grumping about Universal's unapproved adaptation of The Chamber, due this fall). He is co-writing the screenplay for The Rainmaker with director Francis Coppola. By the time Grisham finishes his eighth novel, he could call it Showgirls II and still name his terms...