John Grisham
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50 free John Grisham trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
John Grisham became a fixture of bestseller lists in the early 1990s, when a novel about a rookie lawyer who joins the wrong firm made his name. Dozens of books have followed: courtroom dramas, small-town Southern sagas, sports stories, true-life investigation and tales for younger readers, many of them turned into films with A-list casts. This quiz covers the books and the life behind them. Expect questions on the plots and characters of The Firm, A Time to Kill, The Pelican Brief and The Client, on recurring heroes such as Jake Brigance and Mitch McDeere, on who played whom on screen, and on Grisham's own path from a Mississippi law office to the top of the charts. It is built for book clubs, library events and trivia nights. The early questions suit anyone who has seen the films, and the later ones reward readers who have kept up with the newer novels.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor played young lawyer Mitch McDeere in the 1993 film of John Grisham's The Firm?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise signed on after the producers pitched him on the set of A Few Good Men. The Firm became the highest-grossing film made from a Grisham novel.
Q 02In John Grisham's The Pelican Brief, Darby Shaw's theory explains the assassination of two people holding which job?
Supreme Court justices
Supreme Court justices Rosenberg and Jensen are the victims, and Shaw's brief blames an oil tycoon who wants to drill on marshland that shelters an endangered pelican.
Q 03Before law and bestselling novels, John Grisham dreamed as a boy of a professional career in which sport?
Baseball
Baseball was his dream until he was 18, when a pitcher's beanball narrowly missed him and he quit. He later built a youth ballpark complex.
Q 04In John Grisham's Skipping Christmas, Luther and Nora Krank boycott the holidays after Blair Krank leaves to join what?
The Peace Corps
The Peace Corps sends Blair to Peru for a year, so Luther proposes swapping the holiday for ten days in the Caribbean. Tim Allen played him in Christmas with the Kranks.
Q 05Which actor played lawyer Jake Brigance in the 1996 film of John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey was Grisham's pick: the author had casting approval and vetoed the director's first choice, Woody Harrelson. The role won an MTV breakthrough award.
Q 06In John Grisham's Rogue Lawyer, what does unconventional defense attorney Sebastian Rudd use as his law office?
A bulletproof van
A bulletproof van is his office, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar and leather chairs. His only employee is the heavily armed driver, who doubles as his bodyguard.
Q 07Which actress played law student Darby Shaw in the 1993 film of John Grisham's The Pelican Brief?
Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts ended a yearlong break from acting to take the part, and prepared by sitting in on law classes at Tulane University.
Q 08In John Grisham's The Firm, Mitch McDeere discovers that his generous new employer is secretly a front for whom?
A Chicago crime family
A Chicago crime family, the Moroltos, launders money through the firm. Two colleagues die in a diving accident just days before Mitch starts work.
Q 09While practicing law and writing his first novel in the 1980s, John Grisham held which elected office?
State legislator
State legislator was his role for seven years as a Mississippi Democrat. Bored with the routine of the capital, he gave up the seat in 1990.
Q 10In John Grisham's A Time to Kill, Jake Brigance defends Carl Lee Hailey, a father on trial for what?
Shooting his daughter's attackers
Shooting his daughter's attackers at the courthouse is never in dispute, so Brigance argues insanity while the National Guard patrols the town.
Q 11John Grisham, long associated with Mississippi, was actually born in Jonesboro, a city in which neighboring state?
Arkansas
Arkansas was home only until he was four, when the Grishams settled in Southaven, Mississippi. His father worked construction and farmed cotton.
Q 12Jake Brigance practices law in which fictional Mississippi town, the setting of John Grisham's A Time to Kill?
Clanton
Clanton became Grisham's home base on the page: he returned to it in The Last Juror, The Summons and The Reckoning.
Q 13Which John Grisham novel, filmed by the director of The Godfather with Matt Damon, follows rookie lawyer Rudy Baylor?
The Rainmaker
The Rainmaker pits Baylor, fresh out of law school, against an insurer that refused to pay for a dying young man's bone marrow transplant.
Q 21Which John Grisham novel, his first big step outside legal thrillers, is set on a 1950s cotton farm?
A Painted House
A Painted House is told by seven-year-old Luke Chandler and draws on Grisham's own rural childhood. It first ran in installments in a magazine.
Q 22Which John Grisham novel opens with thieves stealing F. Scott Fitzgerald's manuscripts from Princeton's library?
Camino Island
Camino Island follows the trail of the stolen papers to a Florida resort town. Grisham and his wife hatched the plot on a long road trip.
Q 23Which John Grisham novel follows young lawyer Adam Hall as he fights to save his Klansman grandfather from execution?
The Chamber
Q 14In John Grisham's The Firm, the law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke has its offices in which Southern city?
Memphis
Memphis also hosted most of the 1993 film's shoot, including a chase scene on a city monorail.
Q 15Which actress earned an Oscar nomination as lawyer Reggie Love in the 1994 film of John Grisham's The Client?
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon missed the Oscar but won the BAFTA for the role, opposite a young Brad Renfro, who was making his film debut.
Q 16Which John Grisham novel put a tobacco company on trial, though its 2003 film version switched to a gun maker?
The Runaway Jury
The Runaway Jury lost its tobacco target on screen because The Insider had already told a similar story, so the widow in the film sues a firearms company instead.
Q 17Which 13-year-old hero of John Grisham's series for young readers hands out legal advice to his classmates?
Theodore Boone
Theodore Boone, the son of two lawyers, was inspired by Grisham's own child Shea, and the series opened with Kid Lawyer in 2010.
Q 18Which actor played Carl Lee Hailey, the father on trial, in the 1996 film of John Grisham's A Time to Kill?
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson earned a Golden Globe nomination for the role, in a cast that also gave Octavia Spencer her film debut.
Q 19Which John Grisham book, his first work of nonfiction, tells the true story of Ron Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma?
The Innocent Man
The Innocent Man follows Williamson through 11 years on death row until DNA evidence cleared him in 1999. Netflix made it a documentary series in 2018.
Q 20John Grisham won the first legal fiction prize named for which novelist, a former University of Alabama law student?
Harper Lee
Harper Lee signed the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird that Grisham received as his prize for The Confession, a novel about a last-ditch death-row appeal.
The Chamber is named for the Mississippi gas chamber awaiting Sam Cayhall, who was played by Gene Hackman in the 1996 film.
Q 24Which John Grisham novel sends lawyer Nate O'Riley into Brazil's Pantanal to find missionary Rachel Lane?
The Testament
The Testament begins when billionaire Troy Phelan signs a handwritten will, leaps from a balcony and leaves his fortune to one heir instead of his six children.
Q 25Which 2013 John Grisham novel brought back lawyer Jake Brigance, 24 years after A Time to Kill?
Sycamore Row
Sycamore Row has Brigance defending the handwritten will of a dying man who hanged himself and left 90 percent of his estate to his housekeeper.
Q 26Which 2023 John Grisham novel is a sequel to The Firm, catching up with Mitch McDeere fifteen years later?
The Exchange
The Exchange finds McDeere a partner at the world's largest law firm in Manhattan, where a lawsuit against the Libyan government pulls him back into danger.
Q 27In John Grisham's The Client, what secret does 11-year-old Mark Sway learn from a mob lawyer just before the man dies?
A murdered senator's burial place
A murdered senator's burial place makes Mark a target for the mob and the FBI alike, so he hires Reggie Love for a token fee of one dollar.
Q 28John Grisham joined the board of which organization that uses DNA testing to clear wrongly convicted prisoners?
Innocence Project
The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, and Grisham has testified before Congress on its behalf.
Q 29In John Grisham's The Firm, Mitch McDeere is recruited after finishing third in his class at which law school?
Harvard
Harvard made McDeere a prize recruit, yet he picks a small tax firm that dangles a large salary, a new car and a low-interest mortgage.
Q 30Planning a career as a tax lawyer, John Grisham earned a Mississippi State University degree in which subject?
Accounting
Accounting replaced his first major, economics, and the tax plan faded too: in law school his interest shifted to trial work.