The Testament

Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the U.S. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die. His heirs, to no one's surprise -- especially Troy's -- are circling like vultures.

Nate O' Reilly is a high-octane Washington litigator who's lived too hard, too fast, for too long. His second marriage is in a shambles, he is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab armed with little more than his fragile sobriety, good intentions, and resilient sense of humor. Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it's going to be murder.

Rachel Lane is a young woman who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trappings and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil.

In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure, their lives are forever altered by the startling secret of The Testament.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
John Grisham has been delighting readers for years by pitting modern-day Davids against corrupt corporate Goliaths, seasoning his tales with the seedy and amoral actions of unscrupulous lawyers. With The Testament, Grisham delivers top-notch legal suspense once again by pitting that most common of evils -- greed -- against selfless altruism. But this time the result is a surprisingly lustrous literary tapestry interwoven with the legal maneuvering that has long been Grisham's trademark. Troy Phelan is an eccentric, reclusive, and lonely old man who also happens to be one of the ten wealthiest people in the world. His billions have earned him a lush existence, unlimited power, and the company of a number of willing women. But at the age of 78, Phelan has yet to find true happiness, and he's grown tired of the search. With death just around the corner, Phelan is disgusted and bitter toward his six spoiled and selfish offspring, who see his pending demise as their one-way ticket to life on easy street. Phelan, however, will have the final word, embracing death with the same cruel unpredictability he exercised in life. Phelan's death, anticipated but still surprising, leaves his greedy children struggling to hide their glee behind a mask of mourning. But when they discover the old man has cut them out of his will, their grief becomes all too real. The crowning blow comes when they discover that Phelan left most of his vast fortune to a woman by the name of Rachel Lane, an illegitimate daughter no one knew existed. To make matters worse, Rachel Lane seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. The battle for the Phelan billions begins when the legitimate heirs decide to contest the will, their interests represented by a host of self-serving and unethical lawyers who will stop at nothing to assure that they, too, get their piece of the pie. Troy Phelan's lawyers set out to find Lane, armed only with the knowledge that she is working for a ministry and may be living with a primitive tribe of Indians in the isolated jungles of Brazil. Heading up the search is Nate O'Riley, a successful and ruthless litigator who has paid a high price for his jet-setting lifestyle. After landing in rehab for the fourth time in ten years, O'Riley is anxious to take on the task of finding the world's richest missionary, if for no other reason than to avoid the lure of the life he's trying to escape. The trip turns into more of an adventure than O'Riley bargained for as he ventures deeper into the Brazilian jungle, dragging his personal demons along for the ride. As the lawyers back home do battle with one another in search of the almighty buck, O'Riley battles nature's capricious fury in his search for Rachel Lane. When O'Riley finally nets his quarry, he finds her in the farthest reaches of the Brazilian jungle among natives who live without any of life's most basic conveniences. At first, O'Riley's only goal is to finish his job and get back home to civilization, but he soon becomes captivated by Lane's peaceful serenity, her simple life, and her total devotion to doing God's work. Even more curious is Lane's adamant refusal to have anything to do with her inheritance. As the Phelan heirs and their scheming lawyers continue their fight back in the States, O'Riley finds himself engaged in his own struggle, one that will ultimately threaten both his life and his soul. Those who delight in Grisham's classic battles of legal wits won't be disappointed; the backstabbing, underhanded deceits, and conniving manipulations abound. But this time Grisham offers his readers a special gift -- a compelling journey into a world of primitive wisdom, indescribable beauty, and the most treacherous of dangers -- some of which can be found deep within ourselves. --Beth Amos

About The Author:

As a young boy in Arkansas, John Grisham dreamed of being a baseball player. Fortunately for his millions of fans, that career didn't pan out. His family moved to Mississippi in 1967, where Grisham eventually received a law degree from Ole Miss and established a practice in Southaven for criminal and civil law. In 1983, Grisham was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990.

While working as an attorney, Grisham witnessed emotional testimony from the case of a young girl's rape. Naturally inquisitive, Grisham's mind started to wander: what if the terrible crime yielded an equally terrible revenge? These questions of right and wrong were the subject of his first novel, A Time to Kill (1988), written in the stolen moments before and between court appearances. The book wasn't widely distributed, but his next title would be the one to bring him to the national spotlight. The day after he finished A Time to Kill, Grisham began work on The Firm (1991), the story of a whiz kid attorney who joins a crooked law firm. The book was an instant hit, spent 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise.

With the success of The Firm, Grisham resigned from the Mississippi House of Representatives to focus exclusively on his writing. What followed was a string of bestselling legal thrillers that demonstrated the author's uncanny ability to capture the unique drama of the courtroom. Several of his novels were turned into blockbuster movies.

In 1996, Grisham returned to his law practice for one last case, honoring a promise he had made before his retirement. He represented the family of a railroad worker who was killed on the job, the case went to trial, and Grisham won the largest verdict of his career when the family was awarded more than $650,000.

Although he is best known for his legal thrillers, Grisham has ventured outside the genre with several well-received novels (A Painted House, Bleachers, et al) and an earnest and compelling nonfiction account of small-town justice gone terribly wrong (The Innocent Man). The popularity of these stand-alones proves that Grisham is no mere one-trick pony but a gifted writer with real "legs."

Good To Know

A prolific writer, it takes Grisham an average of six months to complete a novel.

Grisham has the right to approve or reject whoever is cast in movies based on his books. He has even written two screenplays himself: Mickey and The Gingerbread Man.

Baseball is one of Grisham's great loves. He serves as the local Little League commissioner and has six baseball diamonds on his property, where he hosts games.

Feature Interviews

Here are some highlights from our exclusive 2004 interview with author John Grisham:

On his prolific pace:
"I hear writers say it really is hard to let go -- it's really hard, first of all, to start putting the words on the paper, and then once you've finished the thing, it's hard to send it off to New York -- that it's like letting go of a child. I'm just the opposite. When I start writing, the words and ideas come real fast, and once I'm done, I can't wait to get the thing off my desk, out of my house, off to New York, and published -- because I'm already writing the next book."

On being a lawyer vs. writing about them:
"I closed my law office 13 years ago, and it was the happiest day of my life; I have not missed it for one moment. It's so much fun to write about lawyers, but I never enjoyed being a lawyer."

On how his life as a lawyer affects his writing:
"I was so unhappy in that profession I would dream of ways to get out of it," he says. "I think that's just a memory I will take with me forever, because most of my characters -- most of my heroes or heroines -- are looking for a way out, or in the end they ride off into the sunset. Not always, but in 17 books it's happened almost all the time."

On comparing himself with his favorite writers:
"I love to read people like John Steinbeck and William Styron, and people like that; some Hemingway, some Faulkner. I'll read a great novel, and I'll say, 'I'll never be that good!' I have to recognize my own limitations. I think where I am real good is putting a story together -- putting a plot together -- and being able to hook the reader fairly early on in an engaging story, and make the pages turn."

On a reason he's always loved to write:
"I think it's just this fascination I have with escapism -- with being able to just chuck it all, and walk away."

On one of the secrets to his inspiration:
"A hyperactive imagination, which I guess I was born with."

On the characters of his prior books:
"I forget about these people so fast. I get embarrassed all the time because I'll be at a bookstore signing books, and somebody will ask me a question about The Partner, or The Brethren or something I wrote five or six years ago, and I can't answer the question because I don't remember what happened. I really tend to forget about them real fast because I'm always thinking about the next book or the next two books or the next movie."

On "the good life" as a writer:
"Hey, I'm the luckiest guy in the world -- I really feel that way! I get to work about six months out of the year writing a novel, the other six months, I watch baseball games, raise my kids, stay on the farm with my wife and the horses, and live a very easy life -- I'm very spoiled."