The Guardians

He was framed for murder.
Now he needs someone on the outside to save him.

For 22 years Quincy Miller has sat on Death Row without friends, family or legal representation. He was accused of killing a Keith Russo, a lawyer in a small Florida town. But there were no witnesses and no motive. Just the fact that Quincy was black in an all-white town and that a blood-splattered torch was found in the boot of his car. A torch he swore was planted. A torch that conveniently disappeared from evidence just before his trial.

It made no difference. The police photographs of the torch were enough. In the eyes of the law Quincy is guilty and, no matter how often he protests his innocence, his punishment will be death.

Finally, after 22 years, an innocence lawyer and minister, Cullen Post, takes on his case. Post has exonerated eight men in the last ten years. He intends Quincy will become number nine.

But there were powerful and ruthless people behind Russo's murder. They prefer that an innocent man goes to his death than one of them. They killed one lawyer 22 years ago, and they'll kill another one without a second thought.

Praise for John Grisham's latest novel, THE RECKONING:

'I couldn't help thinking of Harper Lee's great American novel To Kill a Mockingbird while reading The Reckoning . . . [Grisham] knows how to spin a yarn' - Chicago Sun-Times

'May be his greatest work yet' - David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon

'Beautifully constructed . . . weaves a truly magical spell' - Daily Mail

'In this saga of love and war, John Grisham has given us a sprawling and engrossing story about a southern family, a global conflict, and the kinds of secrets that can shape all of us. From the courtrooms and jails of rural Mississippi to the war-torn Pacific, Grisham spins a tale that is at once entertaining and illuminating' - Jon Meacham, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of America

'John Grisham is the master of legal fiction, and his latest starts with a literal bang - and then travels backward through the horrors of war to explore what makes a hero, what makes a villain, and how thin the line between the two might be' - Jodi Picoult, internationally bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things

'When a master of storytelling and suspense takes on one of the most wrenching stories in history, the result is a book that will break your heart, set your blood pumping and your mind racing, and leave you gasping for breath by the final page. I'm still trying to recover from The Reckoning' - Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic

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THE INNOCENT MAN by John Grisham is now a major six-part documentary series on Netflix

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(P) 2019 Penguin Random House LLC