The author John Grisham has written a string of bestselling legal thrillers. He practised law for a decade in Southaven, Mississippi, before his first book, A Time to Kill, was published in 1988. He had risen at 5am every day to put in several hours of writing before going to work, specialising in criminal defence and personal injury litigation. His first book attracted only a modest print order of 5,000, but after his second, The Firm, had been sold to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, it was republished and became a bestseller too. He has written a book a year since, mostly about court cases and the law, and he currently has 60 million books in print worldwide. He’s writing his first non-fiction book about a miscarriage of justice that almost led to an innocent man being executed, and also devoting money and time, with his wife, Renee, to raising money for his Rebuild the Coast Fund for fellow Mississippians who were the victims of Hurricane Katrina. So far they have raised nearly $10 million. He has a farm in Oxford, Mississippi, and a plantation near Charlottesville where the couple live with their children, Ty, and Shea. John Grisham is 51 today.
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