4 Underrated Thriller Authors As Good As Grisham

Oct 08, 2026 - 01:16

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4 Underrated Thriller Authors As Good As Grisham

Published Oct 7, 2026, 5:01 PM EDT

Once head of Screen Rant's Star Wars coverage and co-lead of Superheroes, Tom Bacon now works with the movies and books teams. He's a lifelong fan of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, and loves franchises such as Doctor Who and Marvel. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon, on LinkedIn @tabacon, or on Muckrack under tombacon.

Tom has a wide range of interests, and he continues to serve his university as a volunteer chaplain. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he's into British politics too.

One of the most prolific authors alive today, John Grisham is one of only three Anglophone authors to have sold two million copies on the first printing (the others are Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling, to give a sense of just how unusual that is). A graduate of Mississippi State University, Grisham started practice as a lawyer before serving in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990. This legal and political background has shaped his books, giving his thrillers a distinctive edge that readers find utterly captivating.

Grisham has a simple, functional writing style that means your attention is always drawn to the next twist and turn, and he excels at making complex legal and political narratives incredibly easy to understand. Law, corporate conspiracies, and police investigations can often drift into technical discussions, but Grisham somehow manages to make even the driest detail utterly compelling — and without making the reader feel as though he's being condescending.

Grisham is the undoubted master of legal and political thrillers, and several Grisham books have become fantastic movies. And yet, unsurprisingly, he is now far from the only writer occupying this particular space; he blazed the trail that many others follow. Here are some of the more underrated authors in this field, who frankly deserve to be household names.

4 Robert Dugoni

Let's start with Robert Dugoni, a bestselling author whose novels have been optioned for movies and television series. Like Grisham, he has a background in law that he's used to inform his writing career; in 2004, he published The Cyanide Canary as a true account of an investigation into environmental crime. Reviewers praised him for his simple narrative structure, which effectively mimicked the style of a fictional thriller. Nobody was particularly surprised when, two years later, Dugoni followed this up with his first novel.

Dugoni is easily the most prominent name on this list, occupying pretty much the same space as Grisham himself. He's written multiple legal thriller series, and My Sister's Grave has regularly been compared to Grisham in terms of sheer quality. While Dugoni is far from an unknown — he's sold more than 12 million books worldwide and his works have been translated into more than 30 languages — but he's frankly nowhere near as well-known as he deserves to be. If you love the intersection of legal fiction and crime thriller, Dugoni is one to read.

Key Books by Robert Dugoni

Cyanide Canary (Published: September 2004 / Purchasable here): A thrilling real-world account of an EPA investigation, told through the eyes of Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer. Gripping, powerful, and compulsively readable, Cyanide Canary follows all the patterns of a thriller while actually being real.
The Conviction (Published: June 2012 / Purchasable here): A gripping, high-octane legal thriller that launches Dugoni's David Sloane series. When a lawyer's troubled son winds up sentenced to a county-owned wilderness detention camp, it leads to the uncovering of a dangerous conspiracy.
My Sister's Grave (Published: November 2014 / Purchasable here): The first book in Dugoni's critically-acclaimed Tracy Crosswhite series, this kicks off when the body of Tracy's sister is discovered years after her disappearance and murder trial — calling the entire investigation into question once again.
The Eighth Sister (Published: April 2019 / Purchasable here): Meet Charles Jenkins, a former CIA case officer who unwisely heads to Moscow in pursuit of the mastermind behind a series of assassinations. This is the first book in another of Dugoni's series.
Her Deadly Game (Published: March 2023 / Purchasable here): Defense Attorney Keera Duggan is a chess prodigy who gets caught in one dangerous game after another, as she tries to rebuild her career after a personal scandal.

3 Scott Pratt

Another bestselling author with a legal background, Scott Pratt is a United States Air Force veteran who describes himself as "a man who lost everything and wrote his way out" after he was marched to jail after being charged with suborning perjury Pratt enjoys writing legal thrillers, crime fiction, and mysteries, and he's sold over 7 million copies in more than ten languages. Pratt's most celebrated creation, Joe Dillard, is essentially something of a self-insert for Pratt himself, but he's best known for establishing East Tennessee as a character in its own right.

Despite his tremendous success, Scott Pratt's name lacks the wide recognition it deserves. Like Grisham, Pratt is a former attorney who fully understands the world he's writing about, and he manages to make even the most complex cases incredibly readable. Pratt described himself as a "best-kept secret" among Grisham alternatives, which may be something of an exaggeration. Still, reviewers often run the comparison, pointing to the shared Southern setting, courtroom drama, moral compromise and small-town pressures.

Key Books by Scott Pratt

An Innocent Client (Published: November 2008 / Purchasable here): Pratt's debut novel introduces Joe Dillard, a jaded criminal defense lawyer who can't resist the chance to represent someone who might actually be innocent.
In Good Faith (Published: April 2009 / Purchasable here): An Innocent Client was phenomenal, but In Good Faith proved Pratt is no one-hit wonder. Dillard switches from defense attorney to prosecutor in a chilling mystery that asks disturbing questions about the justice system itself.
Injustice For All (Published: May 2010 / Purchasable here): The third book in Pratt's Joe Dillard series, Injustice For All is the most personal to date; Dillard's own wife may have destroyed evidence. This is still the highest-rated Joe Dillard book on Goodreads.
Reasonable Fear (Published: January 2011 / Purchasable here): Dillard's military background becomes more important in what is often described as a turning point for the entire series, with Pratt's writing moving closer to the Reacher end of the spectrum.
Redemption: Scott Pratt & the Birth of Joe Dillard (Published: December 2025 / Purchasable here): A searingly honest account of Pratt's fall from grace and the personal demons that inform his epic hero, Joe Dillard.

2 Mark Gimenez

Hailing from Texas, Mark Gimenez worked as a partner in a major Dallas law firm for 10 years. "Writing was where I should have been all along," he explained in an interview with BookReporter. "In college, I majored in political science, but I did a little creative writing and enjoyed it. An English professor suggested I try writing school, but my political science professors said, "Writing school? Are you crazy? You want to be poor all your life? Go to law school." Well, I had done poor and it wasn't much fun, so I went to law school. When I graduated, I was hired on with a large Dallas law firm and soon realized that I should have listened to my English professor."

Gimenez operates squarely in Grisham's territory; his debut novel, The Color of Law, is almost textbook Grisham setup. The Guardian explicitly compared it to Grisham, and the comparisons became even more explicit with Accused. As with other names on this list, Gimenez is hardly an unknown; he's a best-selling author. But, given some reviewers have described him as inheriting Grisham's mantle, he doesn't get the attention he deserves.

Key Books by Mark Gimenez

The Color of Law (Published: October 2005 / Purchasable here): Gimenez's debut, and the first in his Scott Fenney series. A partner at a prominent law firm is forced to choose between his enviable lifestyle and doing the right thing, when he believes the prime suspect in a murder trial is innocent.
The Perk (Published: January 2008 / Purchasable here): Beck Hardin is a high-profile Chicago trial lawyer who returns to his small Texas hometown after his wife dies of cancer, and he's soon drawn into a murder. This was selected as one of the world's greatest mystery novels over on Goodreads.
Accused (Published: March 2010 / Purchasable here): The second Scott Fenney novel, this is a dark tale where a woman is accused of murdering her own children. It was explicitly called out as Grisham-esque by reviewers, with The Times saying it "ranks with anything Grisham has done in years."
The Absence of Guilt (Published: January 2017 / Purchasable here): The third Scott Fenney mystery, this kicks off when an ISIS attack on the Super Bowl is barely prevented by the FBI — only for Fenney to learn there's absolutely no evidence.
Tribes (Published: August 2020 / Purchasable here): An FBI agent shoots and kills a black boy during a gang raid gone bad, setting in motion a chain of events that challenge Scott Fenney to resign his lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

1 John Fairfax / William Brodrick

John Fairfax is the pseudonym of British author William Brodrick, a student of philosophy, theology, and law who worked with homeless people in London before becoming a barrister. Brodrick worked in this role for about ten years before he became a full-time author, and his Father Anselm mysteries have received particular praise for their blend of mystery and philosophy.

Brodrick is worth adding to this list because reviewers have literally called him Britain's "answer to John Grisham." One of his heroes, Benson, fits perfectly with the kind of legal-thriller pattern you'll find in Grisham's books, and he receives praise for the very same elements that made Grisham so readable; for punchy dialogue, devious plotlines, and courtroom dramas. The British backdrop means these books feel a little different to Grisham, because the legal system works in a subtly different way; but that makes Brodrick's books all the more fascinating.

Summary Justice (Published: March 2017 / Purchasable here): An all-out action court drama, this introduces the Fairfax hero William Benson — a man long since imprisoned for a murder he did not commit, now investigating in the hopes of proving his innocence.
Blind Defence (Published: April 2018 / Purchasable here): For the prosecution, an apparent suicide looks like a bungled killing. But it soon becomes clear this is really a complex case that will go far beyond the courtroom.
Forced Confessions (Published: March 2020 / Purchasable here): Still ostracized by the establishment and his family, William Benson faces the case of his life even as his personal world collapses once again.
Fatal Proof (Published: February 2023 / Purchasable here): The final Benson book (so far), this sees Benson champion Karmen Naylor, estranged daughter of a south London crime boss, fighting a murder charge and desperate to be believed.
The Sixth Lamentation (Published: December 1999 / Purchasable here): While Brodrick demonstrates all the skill you'd want in a Grisham-style author, The Sixth Lamentation demonstrates an unusual range; it's the first in Brodrick's Father Anselm mysteries, investigations that shine a light on philosophy as well as thriller tropes.