the guardian john grisham book review

The Guardians

John grisham.

Quincy was framed, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison with no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. Then he wrote a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small innocence group founded by a lawyer/minister named Cullen Post.

Guardian handles only a few innocence cases at a time, and Post is its only investigator. He travels the South fighting wrongful convictions and taking cases no one else will touch. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another one without a second thought.

370 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2019

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THE GUARDIANS

by John Grisham ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2019

Fans—and Grisham has endless numbers of them—will be pleased.

The prolific Grisham ( The Reckoning , 2018, etc.) turns in another skillfully told procedural.

Pay attention to the clerical collar that Cullen Post occasionally dons in Grisham’s latest legal thriller. Post comes by the garb honestly, being both priest and investigative lawyer, his Guardian Ministries devoted to freeing inmates who have been wrongly imprisoned. Says an adversary at the start of the book, learning that his conviction is about to be overturned, “Is this a joke, Post?” Post replies: “Oh sure. Nothing but laughs over here on death row.” Aided by an Atlantan whom he sprang from the slam earlier, Post turns his energies to trying to do the same for Quincy Miller, a black man imprisoned for the murder of a white Florida lawyer who “had been shot twice in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun, and there wasn’t much left of his face.” It’s to such icky details that Post’s meticulous mind turns: Why a shotgun and not a pistol, as most break-ins involve? Who would have done such a thing—surely not the guy's wife, and surely not for a measly $2 million in life insurance? As Grisham strews the path with red herrings, Post, though warned off by a smart forensic scientist, begins to sniff out clues that point to a culprit closer to the courtroom bench than the sandy back roads of rural Florida. Grisham populates his yarn with occasionally goofy details—a prosecuting attorney wants Post disbarred “for borrowing a pubic hair” from the evidence in a case—but his message is constant throughout: The “innocent people rotting away in prison” whom Post champions are there because they are black and brown, put there by mostly white jurors, and the real perp “knew that a black guy in a white town would be much easier to convict.” The tale is long and sometimes plods, especially in its courtroom scenes, but it has a satisfying payoff—and look out for that collar at the end.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54418-4

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION

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BOOK TO SCREEN

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

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Review: Grisham’s ‘The Guardians’ is suspenseful thriller

• Copy Link copied

“The Guardians: a Novel,” published by Doubleday, by John Grisham

In John Grisham’s latest novel, “The Guardians,” a former priest named Cullen Post works for an organization called Guardian Ministries that scours court transcripts and personal letters from convicts to determine if someone is wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he or she didn’t commit. If the organization believes without a doubt that the potential client is innocent, it will do everything it can within the boundaries of the law to free an innocent person, investigating and pushing for a new trial.

Quincy Miller has been in prison for 22 years — and still claims his innocence. A young lawyer was murdered, and suspicion quickly turned to Miller pulling the trigger. He says a fellow inmate fabricated a story about Miller confessing, and his ex-wife claimed that he owned several guns, which also wasn’t true. Another witness lied about seeing him flee the scene. Miller swears he never owned a gun, wasn’t anywhere in the area that night and that a key piece of evidence that later disappeared was planted.

It’s a bit much to believe that so many folks would be involved in a miscarriage of justice, but Post believes Miller and begins to dig into what happened that fateful night.

Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice. The Guardian team of characters is first-rate, and Miller’s attitude and mannerisms will have readers questioning what truth means in the world of the legal system.

https://www.jgrisham.com/

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Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, the guardians.

The millions of readers of John Grisham novels in America and around the world will not be disappointed in his latest legal thriller, THE GUARDIANS.

Unlike many of his fellow popular authors, Grisham does not rely on a continuing main character or a recurring plot line to drive his story. Each of his works is a tabula rasa , usually involving a struggle between the good and bad guys. Grisham generally adds one other ingredient to his winning formula, as his novels are often focused on a significant issue in American legal society. He has touched upon the crisis in legal education brought about by for-profit law schools, the growth of tort lawyers and class actions, the election of judges and the poisoning of those elections with massive campaign spending, and the one dearest to his heart, the wrongfully convicted in our nation’s legal system.

"Because this is a thriller and not real life, Grisham gives readers an interesting twist often not present in actual exoneration cases.... As always in a Grisham novel, that effort is a page-turning thriller."

Guardian Ministries is an organization that was founded to address this very problem --- a tiny group of understaffed and underfunded attorneys and investigators seeking justice for those who the legal system has failed. As Cullen Post, a Guardian attorney, tells one of his prospective incarcerated clients, “[I]t’s fairly easy to convict an innocent man and virtually impossible to exonerate one.” Grisham has used Centurion Ministries, which was founded in 1980 and has exonerated 63 men and women in those four decades, as the lodestar for THE GUARDIANS.

This is a subject for which Grisham has great passion. Before his writing career exploded, he was a practicing attorney. As a writer, he became aware of exoneration organizations and now supports their work in a variety of ways. THE GUARDIANS is almost like a legal textbook, offering explanations and strategies for how a successful exoneration can come about. I say “almost” because as in most legal thrillers, there do come moments when readers must suspend disbelief as the plot demands something other than the real-life slow grind of our legal system.

In addition to Post, whose primary exoneration work is undertaken outside the courtroom, THE GUARDIANS is the story of Quincy Miller, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Keith Russo, a Florida attorney who represented him in an antagonistic divorce. Miller was convicted but spared execution when one juror would not vote for the death penalty. With the assistance of Post and the Guardian organization, Miller seems to be making progress towards establishing his innocence.

Grisham painstakingly provides readers with the difficulty of the process of exoneration. It takes time, money and passion. Witnesses must be located and questioned again, and evidence reexamined by competent experts. And reluctant prosecutors and judges must face the possibility that justice may not have resulted in obtaining the original conviction.

Because this is a thriller and not real life, Grisham gives readers an interesting twist often not present in actual exoneration cases. Miller was convicted in a knowing conspiracy to frame an innocent man. The real murderers are still around and need to protect themselves. Post must find evidence not only to clear Miller, but to prove the conspiracy to frame his client. As always in a Grisham novel, that effort is a page-turning thriller.

Grisham’s formula is fairly simple: “I start with a story, usually one I ‘borrow’ from the headlines…. When you live in this world, the material is endless.” But turning this formula into a wonderful novel is what makes Grisham a bestselling author. He shows no signs of slowing down, and why should he? Every day there are new stories available for him to share with his loyal readers.

Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman on October 16, 2019

The Guardians by John Grisham

• Publication Date: June 16, 2020
• Genres: Fiction , Suspense , Thriller
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Bantam
• ISBN-10: 0593129989
• ISBN-13: 9780593129982

The Guardians

“A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.”

—Associated Press

About the Book

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A classic legal thriller—with a twist. • "A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.” —Associated Press

In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young Black man who was once a client of Russo’s.

Quincy was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister.

Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought.

Read an Excerpt

Duke Russell is not guilty of the unspeakable crimes for which he was convicted; nonetheless, he is scheduled to be executed for them in one hour and forty‑four minutes. As always during these dreadful nights, the clock seems to tick faster as the final hour approaches. I’ve suffered through two of these countdowns in other states. One went full cycle and my man uttered his final words. The other was waved off in a miracle finish.

Tick away—it’s not going to happen, not tonight anyway. The folks who run Alabama may one day succeed in serving Duke his last meal before sticking a needle in his arm, but not tonight. He’s been on death row for only nine years. The average in this state is fifteen. Twenty is not unusual. There is an appeal bouncing around somewhere in the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, and when it lands on the desk of the right law clerk within the hour this execution will be stayed. Duke will return to the horrors of solitary confinement and live to die another day.

He’s been my client for the past four years. His team includes a mammoth firm in Chicago, which has committed thousands of pro bono hours,...

“Terrific…affecting…Grisham has done it again. Such creative longevity is not that unusual in the suspense genre, but what is rare is Grisham’s feat of keeping up the pace of producing, on average, a novel a year without a notable diminishment of ingenuity or literary quality.”—Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post

“Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice. The Guardian team of characters is first-rate.”– Associated Press

“With his début, 1989’s A Time to Kill , Grisham established himself as a skilled storyteller, a writer who can nimbly portray complex characters who overcome their fears and flaws to pursue justice. Thirty years later, his authorial prowess glows again in this riveting tale.”— Fredericksburg Free Lance Star

“[Grisham] has created a powerful no-nonsense protagonist that you cannot help rooting for in a story stocked with tension and flavor that will have you flipping the pages to a very satisfying ending.”— Florida Times-Union

“Grisham’s colorful prose is riveting, and the issue is a timely one that can be too easily overlooked…His fictional legal happenings convey a loud and clear ring of veracity.”– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“ The Guardians , the newest legal thriller from John Grisham, a true wizard of the form, is certainly not going to disappoint. Fans of the author are going to find it wholly satisfying.”– Anniston Star

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John Grisham: The Guardians review - nail-bitingly good | reviews, news & interviews

John grisham: the guardians review - nail-bitingly good, a damning indictment of the american legal system from top crime novelist.

Some two million Americans are currently in prison in America. A disproportionate number are black and nearly 200,000 are estimated to be innocent. John Grisham’s quietly horrifying new novel is a damning indictment of the inequities and corruption of the American legal system, which is shown to be not only corrupt but also profoundly inefficient and adept at making victims of those it incarcerates.

Over two decades before the story begins, in the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young white lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead while working alone at his desk late into the night. There were no witnesses and it appeared at first a motiveless crime. Nevertheless, the police arrested Quincy Miller, a young black man – one of a minority in the conservative town. As a client of Russo’s, Miller had been publicly incensed at the mishandling of his divorce. According to the police, he used a shotgun and was linked to the crime by a blood-spattered flashlight found at the scene. Conveniently for the police, all the evidence vanished in a fire while in storage, and a little while later a young policeman – also black – who may have had some knowledge of what happened to the evidence was ambushed and murdered. The police chief who had taken personal charge of the case, himself suspected of being up to his eyes in the drug trade, enjoyed a long and affluent retirement.

Grisham cites real-life cases as the inspiration for his fiction and it’s worth bearing in mind the case of the New York Central Park Five to understand the hideous miscarriages of justice of which the legal system is capable. Many of those who write to the Guardian Ministries are guilty; but a significant proportion are people who for one reason or another have been framed and become fall guys for the real criminals. If police, lawyers and judges rely on the testimony of inept witnesses and deeply flawed “experts”, the accused are easy to convict. And who has the incentive – let alone the resources – to investigate cold cases? Certainly not the state which might have to pay substantial damages if a convict is exonerated.

With Quincy Miller, Cullen Post gets far more than he’s bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Miller exonerated. “Our clients are in prison because someone else pulled the trigger. They’re still out there, laughing because the cops nailed the wrong guy. The last thing they want is an innocent lawyer digging through the cold case.” If they killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, they might as easily kill another without a second thought. Still, the person who is in deadly danger is Miller himself. He’s attacked in jail by fellow convicts who have been contracted to kill, bribed not just with money, but also mobile phones and drugs. The real reason Russo was killed emerges in a final twist, reliant upon the complicity of unexpected sources. It is not a pretty story: greed and lust are at its heart.

Other run parallel to Post’s investigation on Miller’s behalf. Duke Russell has been on death row for nine years, convicted of rape and murder, and is but an hour away from execution when Post manages a stay of execution. In the compass of his taut, dispassionate prose, Grisham actually manages to make bureaucracy interesting. The personalities of judges and prosecutors are as crucial as those of innocent prisoners, and decidedly not-so-innocent.

The Guardians is one of Grisham’s most quietly ferocious depictions of America’s dysfunction. He brings home the scale of the resulting human suffering and hones in on the hypocrisy of the richest country in the world which enshrines the highest aspirations for the human being in its founding constitution. Beyond the intertwining of plot and personality, he brilliantly conveys the texture of the South – the endless hours of driving, cheap meals in diners, lives lived at the very edge against the starkly contrasted mansions of wealthy lawyers. Among the most successful lawyers are those, ironically, who sue the State on behalf of wrongfully-convicted prisoners. Such huge amounts of money could be better spent fighting corruption and eradicating inefficiency. Grisham never lets his message interfere with the fascinating narrative. But from the nail-biting postponement of Russell’s execution to the culmination of Miller’s struggles, irony abounds. Grisham’s touch is light: his do gooders may be religious but they never preach.

• The Guardians by John Grisham (Hodder, £14.99)
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The Guardians by John Grisham Review

Innocent? How do you prove it?

Some writers can churn out more than one novel per year. John Grisham , the master of the legal thriller, has written over 40 novels (including his Theodore Boone YA novels) in 33 years. Even after that many books they are still as interesting, thrilling and enjoyable as his first, A Time to Kill (published in 1989) and are not in any way becoming jaded. 300+ million book sales and still going strong.

The Guardians is John Grisham’s 40 th novel. Published in 2019 it is a story of wrongful conviction, a workaholic innocence lawyer, and grave danger!

In The Guardians we are introduced to Cullen Post, a workaholic innocence lawyer who also happens to be part of the clergy – a lawyer and Episcopal priest all in one package. He works for a small firm, Guardian Missionaries, a small team of 4 that specialising in wrongful conviction cases and includes a man that Post had previously exonerated and is now the firm’s private investigator. He and Guardian are currently working on 8 cases after previously exonerating eight others.

The Guardians takes a look at a couple of cases but mainly focuses on the investigation into the wrongful conviction of Quincy Miller, a man who was framed to take the blame for the murder of his divorce lawyer in a small Florida town, sentenced to life without parole. He has so far spent 22 years of his life behind bars for a crime that he didn’t commit, and Post is convinced that he didn’t do it. He just has to find new evidence to prove his innocence.

Once Post starts to investigate, it starts to become a very dangerous case to be involved in. The further he digs he finds evidence of corruption and lies at all levels as well as a shadowy and extremely dangerous drug cartel hidden away in the background.

Overall, John Grisham’s The Guardians is a very good story. Written in the present tense it features a very high standard of storytelling. Whilst it does have a similar formulaic feel to some of his other books about wrongful conviction (Grisham is a member of the board of directors of the  Innocence Project ) it is still a very well-written interesting and enjoyable thrilling read.

The book is based around the true story of Centurion Ministries that was founded by James McCluskey. He worked to prove the innocence of the wrongly convicted. To date, Centurion have exonerated 67 innocent people (all of whom were serving life sentences of even facing the death penalty).

Whilst based on truth, the story of The Guardians itself is a very good work of fiction. It deals with corruption in the legal system, the death penalty, and how the legal system in the US shows prejudice. Grisham’s experience of being a lawyer and being part of the Innocence Project make the story feel very real.

With a cast of characters that are very well fleshed out, they are all excellent and believable, alive on the page.

The Guardians, whilst it may be similar and formulaic to some of his other books (and why not, it is a very successful formula that works well for him), it is a well thought-out story, one that is thrilling with plot twists that are hard to see coming. A very enjoyable read, especially for lovers of John Grisham or readers of courtroom thrillers (although a lot of the book is spent away from the courtroom).

Rating: 4.5/5

RRP: £20 (Hardback) / £8.99 (Paperback) / £4.99 (Kindle)

For more information visit www.jgrisham.com . Available to buy from Amazon here .

DISCLOSURE:  All thoughts and opinions are my own.  This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.

Click here to read more reviews of books by John Grisham

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Review: Grisham’s ‘The Guardians’ is a suspenseful thriller

The prolific writer's latest novel explores the world of defense attorneys working for little pay and prestige to help innocent people who are incarcerated.

The Guardians

By John Grisham

Doubleday. 384 pp. $29.95

Reviewed by Jeff Ayers

In John Grisham’s latest novel, The Guardians , a former priest named Cullen Post works for an organization called Guardian Ministries that scours court transcripts and personal letters from convicts to determine if someone is wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he or she didn’t commit. If the organization believes without a doubt that the potential client is innocent, it will do everything it can within the boundaries of the law to free an innocent person, investigating and pushing for a new trial.

Quincy Miller has been in prison for 22 years — and still claims his innocence. A young lawyer was murdered, and suspicion quickly turned to Miller pulling the trigger. He says a fellow inmate fabricated a story about Miller confessing, and his ex-wife claimed that he owned several guns, which also wasn’t true. Another witness lied about seeing him flee the scene. Miller swears he never owned a gun, wasn’t anywhere in the area that night, and that a key piece of evidence that later disappeared was planted.

It’s a bit much to believe that so many people would be involved in a miscarriage of justice, but Post believes Miller and begins to dig into what happened that fateful night.

Grisham again delivers a suspenseful thriller, this one touching on false incarceration, the death penalty, and how the legal system shows prejudice. The team of characters is first-rate, and Miller’s attitude and mannerisms will have readers questioning what truth means in the world of the legal system.

From the Associated Press.

The Guardians

57 pages • 1 hour read

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-20

Chapters 21-30

Chapters 31-40

Chapters 41-48

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Further Reading & Resources

Summary and Study Guide

The Guardians is a legal thriller written by John Grisham. Published in 2020, it’s inspired by the true story of Joe Bryan, a man who was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and incarcerated for 33 years before being exonerated. An international best-selling author, Grisham was a lawyer for nine years before transitioning to writing full-time. He is a vocal and financial supporter of The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to get wrongfully convicted people exonerated—exactly like the Guardian Ministries organization described in The Guardians . Grisham’s legal knowledge is apparent in The Guardians , which lays bare flaws in the US criminal justice system while exploring broader societal ills like racism. This study guide refers to the 2020 Dell Mass Market Paperback edition of the novel.

Disclaimer: Please beware that The Guardians and this study guide touch on emotionally challenging and possibly triggering topics, including violence (murder/rape/torture), drug use, and racism (including use of racial slurs).

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Plot Summary

The Guardians is narrated in the first person by Cullen Post , a lawyer and Episcopal pastor, who works for Guardian Ministries, an organization that tries to free wrongfully convicted people from prison. In his career at Guardian Ministries, Post has helped exonerate eight people. When the book opens, he is heavily involved in two more cases. One involves Duke Russell , a white man wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a young woman, Emily Broone. The other involves Quincy Miller , a Black man wrongfully convicted of the murder of a lawyer, Keith Russo, in Seabrook, Florida, 23 years ago. The book follows Post and his colleagues at Guardian Ministries as they work to free these two men.

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Duke’s story is the B narrative , a subplot that is simpler and secondary to the A narrative, which is Quincy’s story. Although the book opens with Duke’s case, leading the reader to believe this will be the primary plot, Duke is exonerated a little over half-way through the book. The bulk of the narrative is dedicated to unraveling the complexities of Quincy’s case. The chapters follow Post and his colleagues as they piece together many different pieces of evidence to prove Quincy was framed for Keith’s murder. The work requires illuminating problems with the original case, such as the false testimonies given by witnesses who were coerced to lie to frame Quincy—and the dubious nature of fraudulent “expert” testimonies leveraging sham sciences like blood spatter, which have been proven to be “junk science” in the 23 years since Quincy was locked away.

The work Guardian Ministries does is tedious, involving tracking down people from decades ago. It’s also dangerous. Post learns that Quincy’s original defense lawyer Tyler Townsend was abducted and tortured while he was preparing to appeal Quincy’s conviction. As a result, Tyler did a shoddy job on the appeal on purpose, leaving Quincy stuck in jail. The dangerous nature of Quincy’s case becomes more apparent when it’s revealed that he was framed by Bradley Pfitzner , the former sheriff of Seabrook, who was in the employ of a notorious drug cartel, the Saltillo Cartel. Post learns that Keith had been working for the Cartel but then agreed to serve as an informant for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). The Cartel discovered Keith was double-crossing them and had him killed. The Cartel paid Pfitzner to frame Quincy for the murder. The dangers of a case involving a major cartel become even more apparent when Quincy is attacked in prison, putting him in the hospital in a life-threatening state.

Post learns that Quincy’s framing is linked to the killing of sheriff’s deputy Kenny Taft, which happened shortly after Keith’s murder. Kenny’s murder was orchestrated by Pfitzner, who wanted Kenny dead because Kenny had suspicions that Quincy had been framed. However, before Kenny was killed, he stole three boxes of evidence related to Quincy’s case from a shed where they were being kept. Shortly after, the shed was burned down in an apparent arson attack. As part of Post’s investigation, he tracks down the three boxes. In them, he finds a “smoking gun” piece of evidence: a blood-spattered flashlight the prosecution in Quincy’s case claimed he held when shooting Keith. Since the flashlight had supposedly been destroyed in the fire, photos of it were used at Quincy’s original trial. Upon DNA testing it now, Guardian Ministries discovers the blood on it is rabbit blood. This critical piece of evidence helps to exonerate Quincy.

Although Quincy is ultimately exonerated, the book lays bare the complicated, lengthy, and expensive process (for example, to pay for DNA testing) that it takes to release someone from prison. It simultaneously shows how easy it is to lock someone away for something they didn’t do. In addition to exposing the flawed nature of the criminal justice system, the narrative explores issues of racism both in the legal system and in the United States at large. For example, Quincy—despite the lack of hard evidence against him—was first convicted by an almost all-white jury. Post surmises the only reason Quincy did not get the death penalty was because of the one Black juror present at the time. Although Quincy is ultimately exonerated, it’s a bitter-sweet moment: One man goes free (but has lost 23 years of his life to imprisonment) while thousands of innocent people remain incarcerated, put away by a corrupt system where the odds are against them.

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The Guardians: A Novel Paperback – June 16, 2020

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 400 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Anchor
• Publication date June 16, 2020
• Dimensions 5.24 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• ISBN-10 0593129989
• ISBN-13 978-0593129982
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor (June 16, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593129989
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593129982
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.24 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• #305 in Legal Thrillers (Books)
• #1,722 in Political Thrillers (Books)
• #10,198 in Suspense Thrillers

About the author

John grisham.

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

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“The Guardians” by John Grisham- A Book Review

The Guardians-A Book Review

The first book I read by John Grisham was A Time To Kill . Published in June of 1989, it was his first book. From that time on I have been mesmerized by Grisham’s writing. I can’t honestly say that I have loved all 40 of his books (yes, I’ve read them) but The Guardian s is Grisham at the top of his game.

The hero in this book is a workaholic lawyer who is also an Episcopalian priest. There’s no romance in this book so if you are looking for steamy love scenes, find a different read. The Guardians is pure legal thriller and Cullen Post (the workaholic lawyer/priest) investigates prisoners who were put in prison but they are really innocent.. The focus of the book is on the conviction of Quincy Miller (who spent 22 years in prison before Cullen took the case) and Cullen’s determination to prove that Quincy is innocent. Post works for a group called Guardian Ministries, an organization based on Grisham’s real life involvement with a group called The Innocence Project.

How Post Came to Guardian Ministries

Cullen Post is believable and likable as a priest and lawyer. He’s a nice guy who had a rough beginning as a public defender. When he was called upon to defend a teenage rapist and murderer it caused Post to suffer a nervous breakdown. After he recovered and he was eventually ordained as an Episcopalian priest and then began working with a prison ministry. This led him to defending more “innocents” and that led him to Guardian Ministries.

The colorful and often corrupt characters Cullen encounters along the way to proving Quincy’s innocence are equally entertaining and fascinating. The plot moves fast and furious with one clue, leading to another, to the next. If you are a Grisham fan or a legal thriller fan….don’t pass this one up. It will leave you thinking about the possibility of hundreds (maybe thousands) more innocents behind bars, which in my opinion, is exactly what Grisham intended

To read more about one of my favorite authors, John Grisham, click here.

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You too, Christina! I appreciate your friendship and your blog!

You are welcome and thank you for leaving a comment!

I went for years without reading books (I had five kids within ten years). Now that I can read again I devour books like warm cookies right out of the oven!

My husband has read quite a few John Grisham books. I read “The Innocent Man” that he wrote about an innocent man being accused of murder. I think it’s the only nonfiction book that he’s published. (?) It was very good. And of course well written. 🙂 I am currently reading The Dearly Beloved. It’s not a fast-paced novel, but it has a lot of depth.

You too, Patrick!

Thanks for the book recommendation. Very nice. Thanks for hosting and I hope that you have a wonderful week.

Thank you for making me at least think about reading again. A friend of mine even gave me her latest book for Christmas and I haven’t been able to read it due to the inability to concentrate. And thank you for hosting.

I’m always looking for good book recommendations and this one fits the type of books I like! Thank y ou!

It’s sad when the law fails at being just. I’m glad to see that John Grisham bravely took on this topic in his book. Thanks for sharing and for hosting! Have a blessed day!

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John Grisham’s ‘The Firm’ finally has a sequel. It doesn’t read like one.

Grisham’s latest novel, ‘the exchange,’ reunites readers with mitch mcdeere, who isn’t quite the same hero we fell for all those years ago.

In 1991, when John Grisham and his literary creation “The Firm” blasted out of bookstores faster than a Learjet, both the author and the book’s protagonist, Mitch McDeere, were young, starry-eyed lawyers, hanging around Memphis, hungry for success. Writing what he knew was gold for Grisham: The book, his second after “A Time to Kill,” has sold more than 7 million copies and set the standard for the legal thriller genre.

“The Firm” showed the publishing world how enormous the appetite was for lawyers turned authors who could mix an expert’s eye with a fast-plotted good guy vs. bad guys scenario, with a morally complicated but charming protagonist at its center. As Grisham explained in a 1992 interview, “we lawyers get involved with people who have messed up their lives, and their mistakes make fascinating stories.” His agent received more than 100 unsolicited manuscripts from lawyers that year, and the Grisham effect was born.

A follow-up would have been natural, but it didn’t happen until now. “ The Exchange ,” Grisham’s 49th book, a sequel to “ The Firm ,” just hit shelves.

John Grisham talks basketball — and books

Will the sequel be as good as the original, or will it feel like pinning an extra tail on the prizewinning donkey? Will the loose threads be tied? And for a follow-up to “The Firm,” a book where the women sound as if they were penned by frat boys and the depictions of people of color are cringeworthy, will the non-White and female characters get a better seat at the table?

Let’s look back at how Grisham first set the scene.

As “The Firm” ended, Mitch McDeere, our bootstrapping hero, embodied so naturally by Tom Cruise, had managed to extract himself from the corrupt tax law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke. With the help of his convict brother, a fast-talking secretary and his schoolteacher wife, Abby, McDeere outran the FBI and the mob, handed the Feds all they needed for indictments, and pocketed a cool $10 million. The McDeeres ended up in the Cayman Islands, and while they seemed to have gotten away with it all, it was evident that the chase was on.

“The Exchange” begins in 2005. At 41, Mitch is middle-aged, moneyed and eating truffles on pizza. (The last part isn’t his fault. Abby is no longer a teacher but a cookbook editor.) The two Kentucky kids have become rich New York adults with a perfect marriage: Mitch is a partner at the mega firm Scully and Pershing and living peacefully with Abby and their twin boys. “The Mob never forgets” may have been the oft-repeated threat in “The Firm,” but for Mitch, and this sequel, they forgot.

So three big questions are answered immediately. Mitch and Abby really did outrun everyone, they’ve landed safely back in America, and Mitch is again a successful lawyer. The job happened because Mitch was hired in London and he waved his Harvard flag — so easy! The foodie gig for Abby is justified because after the Caymans, the McDeeres lived for three years in Italy, where Abby took cooking classes, Mitch studied wine, and they learned to speak fluent Italian. In short, if murderers are on your tail, chill out in Tuscany and make bruschetta.

Another big question that comes with a sequel is: Do you take the characters out of the place that was so well drawn that it became a character? In his case, Memphis. And do you have the protagonists make peace with the past?

Grisham does take Mitch back to Memphis, to poke around a death row case, but it’s just an excuse for a meetup with former best friend and Bendini associate Lamar Quin. Their trip down nostalgia lane takes readers just where most of us would have guessed. I won’t spoil it, even if those loose ends are all tied up in a bow in the first few chapters. Mitch leaves Memphis, ready to move on to a new chapter, or in this case it seems, a whole new book that feels very little like a sequel to “The Firm.”

What John Grisham gets right about lawyers and the law

The geographical leap in plot is part of the reason that “The Exchange” reads like a stand-alone. This time, the drama is not legal but financial, as Giovanna Sandroni, an Italian British Scully associate, has been kidnapped in Libya and is being held for a $100 million ransom by some very shady characters. The money must come from Scully, as the female go-between demands that no government or police be involved. (Yes, the women and non-White characters do get a better seat at the table. It’s not the best one, but it’s not in the coatroom either.) The main drama comes from the ticking clock on Giovanna’s life and the terrorist demands that take Mitch all over the world as he tries to raise cash. It’s an intriguing story with the violence, shady dealings and the fast plot that Grisham fans love, but here’s the thing: There’s not much law, and there’s very little gritty, witty Mitch McDeere. He simply feels like a different man.

Mitch has become a devoted husband and father, a person who will plan a quiet night with his wife over, say, getting naked on the beach, stealing dirty money and making wild demands to the FBI. Maybe it’s one too many truffles, but he’s shiny and perfect, even dealing with terrorists elegantly, and doesn’t that go against the standard that Grisham set with this very character?

In Chapter 3, when talking to his wife about Memphis, Mitch says: “Look, Abby, we made the decision a long time ago to live normal lives without looking over our shoulders … What happened there is old history now.” The distance from those Memphis days is felt, and with “The Exchange,” readers may find that a character without flaws is the biggest flaw of all.

Karin Tanabe is the author of six novels, including “ A Woman of Intelligence ,” “ The Gilded Years ” and, most recently, “ Sunset Crowd .”

The Exchange

By John Grisham

Doubleday. 339 pp. $29.95

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