BOOK REPORT: JOHN GRISHAM The Firm
             John Grisham, who has triumphantly won the title of an internationally acknowledged best-selling novelist, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas on February 8, 1955. Moving to Southaven, Mississippi in 1967, he succeeded first with an undergraduate degree in Accounting at Mississippi State University a decade later and then with a Law degree at a law school of the University of Mississippi in 1981 – the same year he married Renée Jones. At a privately established law practice he took up both civil and criminal cases. In 1983 he was elected to the State House of Representatives. Grisham's opening novel A Time to Kill was published in 1989, but failed to fall in with the mainstream, unlike The Firm, which followed in a year. The former appeared on screen in the USA as a story of a Mississippi man (Samuel L. Jackson), who was accused of killing the racists who roughed up his 10-year old daughter. Matthew McConaughey featured as a defense attorney and Sandra Bullock appearing as a law student who pulls his heartstrings were the main standouts of the production. However, the film-version of The Firm was a sensation blockbuster with a nail-biting suspense. In 1990, before the work was even published, Paramount Pictures purchased the film rights for $600.000. The same year, Grisham quit his Representative career and settled down in a newly-bought farm near Oxford, Mississippi.
             • The Firm. Dir. Sydney Pollack. Paramount Pictures, 1993.
             • The Pelican Brief. Dir. Alan J. Pakula. Warner Bros., 1993.
             • The Client. Dir. Joel Schumacher. Warner Bros., 1994.
             • The Chamber. Dir. James Foley. Universal Pictures, 1996.
             • A Time to Kill. Dir. Joel Schumacher. Warner Bros., 1996.
             • The Rainmaker. Dir. Francis Coppola. Constellation Films, 1997.
             • The Gingerbread Man. Story by John Grisham. Enchanter Entertainment, 1998.
             • Mickey....