SPARRING PARTNERS

By John Grisham

Synopsis

Three thrilling stories of the law from the master of the legal thriller. Homecoming takes us back to Ford County, the fictional setting of many of John Grisham's unforgettable stories. Jake Brigance is back, but he's not in the courtroom. He's called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford. In Strawberry Moon, we meet Cody Wallace, a young death row inmate only three hours away from execution. The Sparring Partners are the Malloy brothers, Kirk and Rusty, two successful young lawyers who inherited a once prosperous firm when its founder, their father, was sent to prison. Kirk and Rusty loathe one another and as the firm disintegrates, the fiasco falls into the lap of Diantha Bradshaw, the only person the partners trust. Can she save the Malloys, or does she take a stand for the first time and try to save herself?

Sample Player

Narrator	Miscellaneous
Length	10hrs
Catalogue No.	15925
Publisher	Hodder & Stoughton; 2022

Other audiobooks by John Grisham

THE ASSOCIATE

Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation. But a secret from his past threatens to destroy his fledgling career, and possibly his entire life.

THE BOYS FROM BILOXI

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, drugs . . . even contract killings. The vice was controlled by a small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumoured to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith's father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to 'clean up the Coast.' Hugh's father became the 'Boss' of Biloxi's criminal underground. Keith went to law school and followed in his father's footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father's clubs. The two families were headed for a showdown, one that would happen in a courtroom.

THE BRETHREN

The Brethren are three judges serving time in a minimum security prison. They devise a mail scam, but when it goes wrong and ensnares the wrong victim their quiet days are over!

CAMINO GHOSTS

Dark Isle off the Florida coast is said to be cursed: drownings, disappearances and hauntings have been the fate of intruders. The people who lived there were once enslaved. Now abandoned, it is the target of greedy developers. Lovely Jackson is the last survivor and claims to be its legal owner. But there is not a shred of evidence to prove that is true. It's unlikely that the developers will be deterred by the claims of one old woman. They have millions; Lovely only has Steve Mahon, a pro bono environmental lawyer, and Mercer Mann, a floundering novelist, to fight in her corner. With the court case looming and the bulldozers waiting to roll in, Steve and Mercer are in a race against time to unearth the truth behind Lovely's story and save the legacy of the island.

THE CHAMBER

Adam Hill is in his first year at a top Chicago law firm when he volunteers to take on an unrepentant racist with a violent past. Why does Adam want this case so desperately and why would the accused take on a novice to defend him? The answer lies in the past.

THE EXCHANGE

What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert and Locke and fled the country? The answer is in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm, the blockbuster thriller that launched the career of the world's bestselling author. It is now fifteen years later, and Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan, where Mitch is a partner at the largest law firm in the world. When a mentor in Rome asks him for a favour that will take him far from home, Mitch finds himself at the centre of a sinister plot that has worldwide implications - and once again endangers his colleagues, friends and family.

THE FIRM

Mitchell McDeere, fresh out of Harvard, has his dream job with a small but well-respected law firm. When he discovers a trail of secret files, illegal mob money and a shocking conspiracy the dream turns into a nightmare.

FORD COUNTY

John Grisham takes you into the heart of America's Deep South with a collection of stories connected by the life and crimes of Ford County: a place of harsh beauty where broken dreams and final wishes converge. Featuring a vivid cast of attorneys, crooks, hustlers, and convicts he paints a unique picture of lives lived and lost in Mississippi.

THE GUARDIANS

For 22 years Quincy Miller has sat on Death Row, convicted of the murder of Keith Russo, a lawyer in a small Florida town. The lack of evidence made no difference to judge or jury. An innocence lawyer, Cullen Post, decides to take on his case. But there were powerful and ruthless people behind Russo's murder. They killed one lawyer 22 years ago, and they'll kill another one without a second thought...

THE INNOCENT MAN

Although a work of non-fiction, this is probably one of Grisham's most extraordinary legal thrillers. In 1982 a cocktail waitress was murdered in Ada, Oklahoma. The prosecution case was based on junk science, but Ron Williamson and Denis Fritz were convicted. Grisham re-investigates the whole case.

THE JUDGE'S LIST

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby's father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims. Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law. He is a judge, in Florida - under Lacy's jurisdiction. He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?

THE KING OF TORTS

When public Defender, Clay Carter, takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing he assumes it will be a routine investigation, but as he searches for evidence he stumbles across a chilling conspiracy involving a huge pharmaceutical company.

THE LAST JUROR

Danny Padgett was convicted of rape and murder and imprisoned. Some years later, after his release, jurors who sentenced him start being executed. Danny is the obvious suspect, but a young newspaper editor is committed to discovering the truth.

A PAINTED HOUSE

September 1952 and the cotton crop looks good on the Chanlers' farm. As usual a truckload of Mexicans help with the harvest. Seven year old Luke Chandler sees and hears things that threaten the crop and will change the Chandlers' lives forever.

THE PARTNER

Six weeks after lawyer Patrick Lanigan dies in a car crash, 90 million dollars disappears from the law firm in which he was a partner. His colleagues realise that he must still be alive and are determined to find him!

THE PELICAN BRIEF

Darby Shaw, a brilliant New Orleans legal student, draws up a brief linking the murders of two Supreme Court justices, but when her boyfriend is killed in a car bomb incident she realizes that someone will stop at nothing to silence her.

THE RECKONING

Pete Banning was the patriarch of a prominent family and a faithful member of the Clanton Methodist Church. Then one October morning in 1946, he drove into town, walked into the Church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. What turned Pete into a cold-hearted killer? And why won't he confide in anyone? All his closest family knows is that it must have been something devastating - and that the fallout will haunt them, and the town, for decades to come . . .

THE ROOSTER BAR

Mark, Todd and Zola are starting to realise it's not even worth graduating from law school. They're better off hanging out at The Rooster Bar, plotting how to dodge the loan sharks. But maybe there's another way. Because it turns out the crooked hedge fund billionaire who owns their law school also runs the bank that arranged their student loans. And it's time justice was served. Even if it means taking on the FBI to do it . . .

THE RUNAWAY JURY

A huge tobacco company case in Biloxi seems to swerve off-course and at least one juror thinks he is being watched. Soon the jury have to be sequestered amid suspicions that they are being manipulated. The question is why and by whom?

SKIPPING CHRISTMAS

When their daughter flies to Peru for two years, Luther and Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas. No cards; no presents; no fruit cakes: no rooftop Frostie or Christmas Eve drinks parties - instead Luther and Nora were leaving for a Caribbean cruise. But as time goes on they realise that skipping Christmas isn't as easy as they thought!

THE STREET LAWYER

Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D. C. firm with 800 lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star, with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers, no time to walk around them on the sidewalk. No time for a conscience. But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this homeless man? Michael did some digging and learned that he was a mentally ill veteran who'd been in and out of shelters for twenty years. Then Michael dug a little deeper, and found a dirty secret, and the secret involved Drake & Sweeney. The fast track derailed; the ladder collapsed. Michael bolted from the firm, and took a top secret file with him. He landed in the streets, a poverty lawyer, a street lawyer, an advocate for the homeless. And a thief.

THE SUMMONS

A sick, old man, Judge Atlee summons his two sons, Ray and Forrest, home to discus his estate. He dies before Ray arrives leaving Ray to discover a shocking secret, but who else knows?

THE TESTAMENT

Troy Phelan, a self-made billionaire: Nate O'Riley, a high-octane Washington lawyer and Rachel Lane, a young woman working with the Indians in the Brazilian jungle. These three lives are altered forever by the startling secret of The Testament.

A TIME TO KILL

When Carl Lee Hailey kills the two white hoodlums who raped his ten year old child, an angry mob forms in the Mississippi town of Clanton. Defence lawyer, Jake Brigance, finds himself defending his life and his family as well as his client.

THE WHISTLER

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. Investigating judicial misconduct by Florida's one thousand judges, her cases so far have been relatively unexciting. That is until she meets Greg Myers, an indicted lawyer with an assumed name, who has an extraordinary tale to tell. Is she ready to pit herself against the most corrupt judge in American history, a judge whose associates think nothing of murder?