An interview with John Grisham about the suspect’s novel

Bestselling author John Grisham has written a new novel. In the interview, he spoke about murderous judges and the damage Donald Trump has done to the American legal system.

John Grisham is one of the most widely read authors in the world, and that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t write. In her 1995 essay on the FAZ thriller “Die Kammer,” Ruth Kluger wrote: “Gresham can write, though he is widely read, and that his books are better than her reputation among German intellectuals.” Since then, Grisham publishes a new novel every year, mostly legal thrillers, and each has made it to the bestseller list. Movies based on Gresham’s books such as “The Company”, “The Files” or “The Jury” were huge box office hits in the 1990s. The 67-year-old version has a total circulation of 275 million copies in more than forty languages. His new novel, The Suspect, is about a judge who murders several people. Lacey Stoltz, the Florida Board of Justice attorney who appears in Gresham’s Bribery novel, attempts to convict him. It’s not Grisham’s most powerful book, and probably won’t improve his reputation among German intellectuals either, but it works like clockwork because Grisham knows how to compose a thriller. We video chat from workroom to workroom.