A Time to Kill
A Novel
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4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham’s first novel is a searing courtroom drama that probes the savage depths of racial violence and introduced the world to fearless lawyer Jake Brigance.
“John Grisham may well be the best American storyteller writing today.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
The life of a ten-year-old black girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless white men. The mostly white town of Clanton in Ford County, Mississippi, reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime—until the girl’s father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his own hands.
For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client’s life—and then his own.
Look for all of John Grisham’s gripping Jake Brigance novels:
A Time to Kill
Sycamore Row
A Time for Mercy
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
John Grisham showed his mastery of the legal thriller with this taut, slow-burn story of a small-town Southern lawyer taking on a racially charged case. When a 10-year-old black girl is raped by two local white reprobates, her father takes justice into his own hands, murdering them in a state of rage. Local attorney Jake Brigance takes on the man’s case, despite the escalating racial violence surrounding it in their largely segregated town of Clanton, Mississippi. Can he and his client survive the turmoil as long-simmering racial tensions threaten to tear their community apart? Tackling racism, our flawed criminal justice system, and the often heavily biased role of the media, Grisham does more than pay lip service to these hot-button issues. He also paints the novel’s setting in vivid detail, filling A Time to Kill with compelling side characters and moments of small-town eccentricity. By the time this tightly wound thriller reached its conclusion, we couldn’t wait to start the sequel, Sycamore Row.
Customer Reviews
A Time To Kill
4/5 stars
I would have given it five stars, but the book was about 100 pages too drawn out.
Hal R - Troy MI
Great read
His best book
One of the very best!
This story is one of the best, great plot and characters and written to perfection, going to be hard to top this one. Start it and you cannot put it down!