When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.

When Marshall McEwan left his hometown at age 18, he vowed never to return. The trauma that drove him away ultimately spurred him to become one of the most successful journalists in Washington DC. But just as the political chaos in the nation’s capital lifts him to new heights, Marshall is forced to return home in spite of his boyhood vow. His father is dying, his mother is struggling to keep the family newspaper from failing, and the town is in the midst of an economic rebirth that might be built upon crimes that reach into the state capitol - and perhaps even to Washington.

This is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man's search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

Dr. Chris Shepard has never seen his new patient before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face knows him all too well. An FBI agent working undercover, Alex Morse has come to Dr. Shepard’s office in Natchez, Mississippi, to unmask a killer. A local divorce attorney has a cluster of clients whose spouses have all died under mysterious circumstances. Agent Morse’s own brother-in-law was one of those clients, and now her beloved sister is dead.

24 Hours begins with the perfect family...on the perfect day...about to become trapped in the perfect crime.

Will Jennings is a successful young doctor in Jackson, Mississippi, with his whole life ahead of him. He has a thriving practice, a beautiful wife, and a young daughter he loves beyond measure.

In the heart of North Carolina's Research Triangle stands a corporate laboratory much like the others nearby. But behind its walls, America's top scientists work around the clock to attain the holy grail of the 21st century - a supercomputer that surpasses the power of the human mind.

On the night he celebrates a big win, defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a former client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is immediately charged with murder but can’t post the exorbitant $5 million bail. Mickey elects to represent himself and is forced to mount his defense from his jail cell in downtown Los Angeles. Even if he can obtain a not-guilty verdict, Mickey understands that it won’t be enough. In order to be truly exonerated, he must find out who really committed the murder and why. That is the law of innocence.

Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.

The Spandau Diary -- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in this new conflict about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?

Attorney Nate Shepherd left a big firm to go out on his own. He sees nothing but opportunity when an out-of-town lawyer wants to hire him as local counsel on a high-profile murder case. Though his family worries that the case hits too close to home, Nate joins the defense team. When circumstances force him to take on a bigger role, Nate ignores his family’s fears and throws himself into his client’s defense.

Attorney Jason Rich has made a fortune off other people’s bad luck. His billboard slogan—“In an accident? Get Rich!”—accosts motorists on highways from Alabama to Florida. As ambulance chasers go, he’s exceptional. But after a recent divorce and a stint in rehab, Jason has hit a rough patch. And things only get worse when his sister, Jana, is accused of her husband’s murder. Even though Jason has no experience trying criminal cases, Jana begs him to represent her.

After more than twenty years away from the law, Joe Hennessy is forced back into the courtroom. Trying to save his vineyard after years of drought, Hennessy returns to practice in Charleston, South Carolina–the city he walked away from after the murder of his ten-year-old son. When one of South Carolina's most powerful men is charged with possessing stolen artwork, Hennessy steps forward to defend him. But as Hennessy digs into the evidence, as he navigates the truth, he finds that the criminal charges are only the start of their problems…

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world...and then tragedy struck.

When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.

Nicki Janssen's days are numbered, but she refuses to accept her fate lying down. Defying her father and doctors, she hits the road with a pocketful of cash, a bus ticket - and a romantic fantasy of riding off with her childhood crush. Handsome, dangerous Brad Ward is facing a different kind of sentence. Sent to prison for felony murder, he has escaped and rekindled his relationship with Nicki. But when Nicki's father joins forces with a deputy sheriff, the search for the runaways ignites a manhunt.

24 Hours begins with the perfect family...on the perfect day...about to become trapped in the perfect crime.

Will Jennings is a successful young doctor in Jackson, Mississippi, with his whole life ahead of him. He has a thriving practice, a beautiful wife, and a young daughter he loves beyond measure.

A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear. Sara's ex-husband, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation - a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another local woman is found crucified a few days later.

The first victim is found in a snow-covered Philadelphia field. Detective Vito Ciccotelli enlists the aid of archaeologist Sophie Johannsen to determine exactly what lies beneath the frozen ground. Despite years of unearthing things long buried, nothing can prepare Sophie for the matrix of graves dug with chilling precision. The victims buried there haunt her. But the killer isn't done yet. He is cold and calculating, the master of a twisted game. Even with Vito and Sophie hot on his trail, he will not stop.

When truth doesn’t make sense, will lies prevail? Cathy Cramer is a former lawyer and investigative blogger who writes commentary on high-profile homicides. When she finds a threatening note warning her that she’s about to experience the same kind of judgment and speculation that she dishes out in her blog, Cathy writes it off as mischief...until her brother’s wife is murdered and all the “facts” point to him. The killer has staged the crime to make the truth too far-fetched to believe.

Every week a hundred million dollars in cash arrives at Miami International Airport, shipped by German banks to the Federal Reserve. A select group of trusted workers moves the bags through customs and loads them into armored trucks.

As a medical examiner, Samantha Owens knows her job is to make a certain sense of death with crisp methodology and precision instruments. But the day the Tennessee floods took her husband and children, the light vanished from Sam’s life. She has been pulled into a suffocating grief no amount of workaholic ardor can penetrate - until she receives a peculiar call from Washington, D.C. On the other end of the line is an old boyfriend’s mother, asking Sam to do a second autopsy on her son.

All ATF Agent Jack Donovan wants out of life is to do his job and work on his strained relationship with his daughter Jessie after a nasty divorce. But in a ruthless act of revenge by a charismatic madman, Jessie is kidnapped and buried alive, with barely enough oxygen to sustain her. Now the only man who can save her, the only man who knows where to find her, has just been shot dead - and the clock is ticking... So what's a father to do?

As a boy, Will Klein had a hero: his older brother, Ken. Then, on a warm suburban night in the Kleins’ affluent New Jersey neighborhood, a young woman—a girl Will had once loved—was found brutally murdered in her family’s basement. The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished. And when his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good.

When Liv Dugan ducks out of work for lunch, it's just an ordinary day. When she returns, she stumbles onto a massacre. All her colleagues at Zuma Software have been shot. Only luck has left Liv unscathed, and that might be running out....

Virgil Skinner served 14 years for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s finally been exonerated, but he can’t escape the gang he joined in order to survive. They’ll do anything to keep him from telling what he knows. And if they can’t get to Virgil, they’ll go after his sister and her kids. The California Department of Corrections needs someone to infiltrate another gang, one that’s taking control of the state’s most notorious supermax. Virgil’s the perfect candidate, and he’ll agree to do it under an alias - in exchange for his sister’s protection.

He performs his profane ceremony in a wooded Minneapolis park, anointing his victims, then setting the bodies ablaze. He has already claimed three lives, and he won't stop there. Only this time there is a witness. But she isn't talking. Enter Kate Conlan, former FBI agent turned victim/witness advocate. Not even she can tell if the reluctant witness is a potential victim or something more troubling still.

A peaceful Minnesota town, where crime is something that just doesn’t happen, is about to face its worst nightmare. A young boy disappears. There are no witnesses, no clues — only a note, cleverly taunting, casually cruel. Has a cold-blooded kidnapper struck? Or is this the reawakening of a long-quiet serial killer?

It looked for all the world like a terrible, tragic accident. Susanna Morgan had gotten up in the middle of the night, tripped, fallen, and broken her neck. Yet when detective Justin Westwood inspects the victim's apartment, he can't help noticing that the details don't quite add up. The glass on the bedside table is knocked over but there are no cuts on her body. The scrape on her knee looks suspiciously fresh. And then a terrified witness comes forward, confirming his worst fear.

When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.

Raised in Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now Tom has been accused of murdering the Black nurse with whom he worked in the 1960s and Penn is determined to exonerate him. The quest for answers leads down a trail of corruption and brutality that places Penn’s family squarely in the crosshairs of the Double Eagles, a vicious offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the state’s most powerful men. Penn ultimately must acknowledge that secrets from his father’s past have put the Cage family in great jeopardy.

When Marshall McEwan left his hometown at age 18, he vowed never to return. The trauma that drove him away ultimately spurred him to become one of the most successful journalists in Washington DC. But just as the political chaos in the nation’s capital lifts him to new heights, Marshall is forced to return home in spite of his boyhood vow. His father is dying, his mother is struggling to keep the family newspaper from failing, and the town is in the midst of an economic rebirth that might be built upon crimes that reach into the state capitol - and perhaps even to Washington.

24 Hours begins with the perfect family...on the perfect day...about to become trapped in the perfect crime.

Will Jennings is a successful young doctor in Jackson, Mississippi, with his whole life ahead of him. He has a thriving practice, a beautiful wife, and a young daughter he loves beyond measure.

Laurel Shields, 35 and mother of two, awakens to find that her husband, Warren, a prominent local physician, is not in bed with her. Creeping out to the kitchen of their palatial home, she sees him through the doorway of his study, wildly pulling books from the shelves.

Dr. Chris Shepard has never seen his new patient before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face knows him all too well. An FBI agent working undercover, Alex Morse has come to Dr. Shepard’s office in Natchez, Mississippi, to unmask a killer. A local divorce attorney has a cluster of clients whose spouses have all died under mysterious circumstances. Agent Morse’s own brother-in-law was one of those clients, and now her beloved sister is dead.

The Spandau Diary -- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in this new conflict about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?

Penn Cage, Bürgermeister von Natchez, Mississippi, hat eigentlich vor, endlich zu heiraten. Da kommt ein Konflikt wieder ans Tageslicht, der seine Stadt seit Jahrzehnten in Atem hält. In den sechziger Jahren hat eine Geheimorganisation von weißen, scheinbar ehrbaren Bürgern Schwarze ermordet oder aus der Stadt vertrieben. Nun ist mit Viola Turner, eine farbige Krankenschwester, die damals floh, zurückgekehrt - und stirbt wenig später.

St. Patrick's Day, New York City. Everyone is celebrating, but everyone is in for a shock. Born into the heat and hatred of the Northern Ireland conflict, IRA man Brian Flynn has masterminded a brilliant terrorist act: the seizure of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Among his hostages: the woman Brian Flynn once loved, a former terrorist turned peace activist.

Sebastian Rudd, rogue lawyer, defends people other lawyers won't go near. It's controversial and dangerous work, which is why Sebastian needs his bodyguard/assistant/sidekick: Partner. So if Sebastian is just about the most unpopular lawyer in town, why is Partner so loyal to him? How did they meet? And what's the real story of this man of few words who's as good with a gun as he is with the law? The surprising answers are all in PARTNERS, John Grisham's first exclusively digital short story.