# The Firm (novel)
**The Firm** is a 1991 legal thriller by the American author [John Grisham](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-grisham), his second published novel, in which a newly graduated [Harvard Law School](https://www.edgepedia.org/harvard-law-school) star takes a job at a Memphis firm that turns out to be a front for a Mafia family laundering money through [Cayman Islands](https://www.edgepedia.org/cayman-islands) tax havens. It was the book that made Grisham's career, selling more than seven million copies and staying on the bestseller list for nearly a year.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/) • [2](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author / publisher | John Grisham; Doubleday, New York[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/) |
| Publication | 1991; Kirkus lists a release date of March 15, 1991, while Penguin Random House lists the on-sale date as February 1, 1991[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/) • [3](https://penguinrandomhouselibrary.com/book/?isbn=9780385416344) |
| Genre | Legal thriller and suspense; the story is set in Memphis, Tennessee, and on the Gulf Coast[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) |
| Protagonist | Mitchell Y. McDeere, a Harvard Law graduate hired by Bendini, Lambert & Locke[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) |
| Sales | More than seven million copies; on the bestseller list for nearly a year[2](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/) |
| Film adaptation | 1993 film starring Tom Cruise; the first adaptation of a Grisham novel to top the box office[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1044522-firm) |
| Sequel | *The Exchange: After the Firm*, published October 2023[6](https://www.fictiondb.com/series/the-firm-john-grisham~81005.htm) |
## Plot
Mitchell McDeere finishes Harvard Law School in the top five of three hundred graduates and receives an offer he cannot match: a starting salary of eighty thousand dollars a year from the Memphis firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke, along with payment of his student loans, an expensive automobile, a low-interest home loan, and other perks.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) Kirkus's contemporary review describes the package as a new BMW, a company-financed mortgage, a large clothing allowance, and the promise of early retirement as a multimillionaire, in exchange for ninety-hour weeks and aggressive billing.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/)
The firm is a front for the Morolto Mafia family of Chicago, involved in tax fraud and the laundering of millions of dollars, with phony corporations set up in the Cayman Islands; the firm's Lear jet hauls cash to the islands' banks and secret numbered accounts.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) • [1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/) McDeere learns that the firm's younger lawyers who have died in recent years were murdered rather than victims of accidents and suicides, and that no one ever quits Bendini, Lambert & Locke.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) • [1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/)
FBI agent Wayne Tarrance recruits McDeere as an informant, offering the Witness Protection Program and warning that he will otherwise be swept up in a coming crackdown on the firm.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) • [1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/) After the firm's security chief, DeVasher, learns of his contacts with the FBI and confronts him with compromising photographs taken on a trip to [Grand Cayman](https://www.edgepedia.org/grand-cayman), McDeere resolves to escape both sides. With the private investigator Eddie Lomax's secretary Tammy Hemphill, whose motive is revenge for Lomax's murder, he copies the firm's confidential files; his wife Abby joins the plan in the Caymans.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) The novel ends with Mitch and Abby, holding eight million dollars and videotapes of the documents as security, escaping to the Caymans and planning their future as fugitives.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham)
## Characters
The principal characters, as cataloged by EBSCO's Research Starters, include Mitchell McDeere; his wife Abby, a schoolteacher; his brother Ray, serving a prison sentence in Tennessee; the firm's senior partners Oliver Lambert and Nathan Locke; Avery Tolar, the partner assigned as Mitch's mentor; DeVasher, head of security and liaison with the Morolto family; FBI agent Wayne Tarrance; private detective Eddie Lomax; and Tammy Hemphill, Lomax's secretary and later Mitch's coconspirator.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham)
The novel is divided into forty-one short chapters and is told in the third person, principally from Mitch's perspective, with parts of the book from other characters' viewpoints.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham)
## Writing and publication
Grisham, a native of the [Deep South](https://www.edgepedia.org/deep-south) and a practicing lawyer, drew on both backgrounds for the book.[4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) The manuscript took him less time than his first novel, *A Time to Kill* (1989); he was using a word processor instead of writing longhand on legal pads, but was still putting up to 70 hours a week into his law practice.[7](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED390725.pdf) When he finished the manuscript, his agent called an auction among editors, and David Gernert, a young editor at Doubleday, bought the publishing rights; Doubleday published the book in early 1991.[8](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/03/28/the-tort-story-writer/47a126a0-de69-4bea-aee1-38bfc52ce4ba/) • [9](https://jgrisham.com/the-firm-35-years-later)
Before publication, a Hollywood scout smuggled the manuscript to Los Angeles, sparking a bidding war and a $600,000 contract with [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures).[2](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/) Kirkus, reviewing the book before release, called it a "terrifically exciting and likable first novel about tax lawyers and the Mafia" and predicted a success, while noting that Grisham did not cut as deep as [Scott Turow](https://www.edgepedia.org/scott-turow) but wrote "a stripped, cliche-free page that grips and propels."[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/) Publishers Weekly described it as a gripping fiction debut about a law firm set up by the Mafia to launder money and concoct tax evasions.[10](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780385416344)
## Reception and impact
The book "just started to sell immediately," Gernert later told *Time*; it stayed on the bestseller list for nearly a year and sold more than seven million copies.[2](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/) The success changed Grisham's life: he left the law and never looked back, *A Time to Kill* was reprinted and became a hit in its own right, and his subsequent novels, including *The Pelican Brief* (1992) and *The Client* (1993), were eagerly awaited and immediately became bestsellers.[2](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/) • [4](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham) For years, Grisham and his wife Renee referred to periods of their lives as "BF" and "AF", before *The Firm* and after *The Firm*.[2](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/)
The 1993 film adaptation, directed by [Sydney Pollack](https://www.edgepedia.org/sydney-pollack) and starring [Tom Cruise](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-cruise), was the first adaptation of a Grisham novel to top the box office; critics scored it 77 percent on Rotten Tomatoes's Tomatometer, and the Los Angeles Times called it "a polished example of commercial movie-making that manages to improve on the original."[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1044522-firm) • [11](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-firm/critic-reviews/)
In October 2023 Grisham published the sequel *The Exchange: After the Firm*, in which Mitch McDeere, now a partner at the world's largest law firm in 2000, returns to Memphis and becomes entangled in a new international plot.[6](https://www.fictiondb.com/series/the-firm-john-grisham~81005.htm) • [12](https://apnews.com/article/37cc7951b5f089f8160f269f6f112ee9)
## References
1. [THE FIRM, by John Grisham. Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1991 issue.](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/the-firm/)
2. [The Enduring Charm of John Grisham. Time, October 2, 2023.](https://time.com/6317634/john-grisham-the-exchange-book-interview/)
3. [The Firm: A Novel. Penguin Random House Library Marketing.](https://penguinrandomhouselibrary.com/book/?isbn=9780385416344)
4. [Holditch, W. Kenneth. The Firm by John Grisham. EBSCO Research Starters, 2022.](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/firm-john-grisham)
5. [The Firm (1993). Rotten Tomatoes.](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1044522-firm)
6. [The Firm Books in Order by John Grisham. FictionDB.](https://www.fictiondb.com/series/the-firm-john-grisham~81005.htm)
7. [John Grisham. ERIC document ED390725.](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED390725.pdf)
8. [The Tort Story Writer. The Washington Post, March 28, 1992.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/03/28/the-tort-story-writer/47a126a0-de69-4bea-aee1-38bfc52ce4ba/)
9. [The Firm, 35 Years Later. John Grisham, official website.](https://jgrisham.com/the-firm-35-years-later)
10. [The Firm. Publishers Weekly, February 4, 1991.](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780385416344)
11. [The Firm critic reviews. Metacritic.](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-firm/critic-reviews/)
12. [Book Review: John Grisham brings back 'The Firm' star Mitch McDeere in 'The Exchange'. AP News, 2023.](https://apnews.com/article/37cc7951b5f089f8160f269f6f112ee9)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Genre fiction categories › Crime, mystery, and thriller › Thriller subgenres*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license