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John Grisham's America

 John Grisham wrote "A Time to Kill," then "The Firm"--and it was "The Firm"'s world-historical success that led readers *back* to "A Time to Kill."


Though "Time to Kill" didn't initially have the sales that "The Firm" had, readers did discover and did fall in love with "Time to Kill," and Grisham now reports that most readers who come to him to describe a favorite Grisham book.....are describing "A Time to Kill."


Partly for this reason, Grisham has now revisited the "Kill" setting. "A Time for Mercy" brings back Jake Brigance, a lawyer in Mississippi in 1990. Near Jake's home, a well-liked police officer regularly abuses alcohol and secretly assaults his family (once or twice per night). On an especially bad night, the officer beats his girlfriend so severely that she seems to lose her life. Her young son picks up a gun and murders the police officer, who has been passed out on his bed for several minutes.


How do you approach this case? It's not self-defense. The officer was unconscious (and maybe even dead from drinking!) when his enemy attacked him with the gun. But would you really send a kid to his death via capital punishment, when the kid was severely traumatized and responding to months and months of violence in the house?


This is a gripping scenario, and it allows Grisham to invent several wacky characters. The decent lawyer who will nonetheless lie about unpleasant evidence, if the lie could be helpful. The potential juror who knows she ought to speak up about her own history with domestic abuse--and who, mysteriously, opts not to speak up. The bright office assistant who surely could try the case on her own, in a less rule-bound world. The murderer-for-hire, waiting in the wings, wondering if he might assist Jake by unconventional means....


One of Grisham's great gifts is a detailed understanding of the legal system--how one side can cheat the other out of months of hard work, how the announcement of a pregnancy can be used as a kind of courtroom ambush, how two people can listen to opening remarks, and one feels the remarks are too maudlin, while the other feels the remarks are far too restrained. Grisham folds in his knowledge without becoming preachy or didactic, and he keeps the story moving.


Grisham has expressed his fondness for Michael Connelly--another wizard of storytelling--and it's fun to imagine what the two might invent if they worked together.


I was able to get absorbed in "A Time for Mercy," in a difficult and stressful month, and that's a tribute to Grisham. Four stars.

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