“I don’t want to inspire anyone to get any bad ideas,” Grisham said. More important, he was concerned for the library’s safety. For one thing, he admits to being a lazy researcher. He did not, however, visit Firestone Library at Princeton, where the heist takes place. Grisham began doing research, calling rare-book dealers for details. The Grishams, who live near Charlottesville, collect rare first editions by Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Fitzgerald. “I can’t remember what inspired us to start talking about rare books and rare-book thefts,” Grisham said, although he vaguely recalls hearing an NPR story about a book heist in London. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton University’s main library, a bookish thief and a struggling young novelist. “Camino Island” is an entertaining departure from his legal thrillers. If a living thriller writer whose books circulate in the rare-book world is an anomaly, a thriller writer of a rare book writing a thriller about the black market in rare books is an act of total cognitive publishing dissonance.īut that’s what Grisham has done with his new novel - his 30th. “If you read the book, the spine would just break,” said Lemuria owner John Evans, whose copy, in so-so condition, is marked at $3,000.

But in the rare-edition room at Lemuria Books in Jackson, Miss., there’s Grisham’s first novel, “A Time to Kill,” written when he was still working as a small-town lawyer. That might sound puzzling, given that Grisham has sold more than 300 million copies of his thrillers. John Grisham is the author of a rare book. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu

A time to kill novel