Jake is brought in to defend Drew, a 16-year old accused of murdering his mother's boyfriend. Drew's mom, Josie, has suffered abuse at the hands of her boyfriend for years and this night was no different. Drew and his younger sister, Kiera, were hiding upstairs when Stuart came home and got in a fight with Josie. After a while, neither of them heard sounds coming from the kitchen. Stuart was a cop and Drew took his gun and shot him because he thought his mom was dead. ( )

Mystery

murder

4.5 stars

When Josee’s boyfriend comes home drunk – again – she is beaten unconscious. Her two teenage kids are locked in one of their bedrooms hiding, but when they hear Stuart (the boyfriend) clomp off to his bedroom and they can’t hear their mother, they are afraid she is dead. When they go down to check, 16-year old Drew turns around to find Stuart passed out on his bed… with his gun beside him. 14-year old Kiera, downstairs with her mother, hears the shot. When the police come, Drew is arrested. In Mississippi, murdering a cop guarantees a capital (death penalty) trial. Defense lawyer Jake Brigance is handed the case.

Another great book by Grisham. I really like Jake and the story was fantastic. Not a short book (are any of Grisham’s short?), but I wanted to keep reading to see what surprises might happen next. Black woman Portia is working for Jake and planning to head to law school; she’s another secondary character I really like. I do hope the series continues. ( )

TW: mild spoilers, reference to alleged sexual offender

Jake Brigance returns for a third attempt at making a name for himself as a lawyer. As other reviews have noted, the plot is rather similar to A Time to Kill, the first appearance of Atty. Brigance in 1989. The circumstances of the killing are different: 1. a white teenager kills a white police officer, as opposed to a black mill worker killing white thugs; 2. the boy avenged the purported death of his mother, while the man avenged the rape of his daughter; 3. the boy's sister winds up pregnant by the dead man, whereas the little girl is robbed of her ability to have children of her own.

These differences in plot carve enough space between the two novels so as not to detract from the pleasure of reading whichever one the reader picks up last. I personally read A Time to Kill after Grisham's 1991 novel The Firm, and both after their respective cinematic adaptations. Setting the differences aside, however, key themes emerge from both novels: injury and revenge, the dangers of alcoholism, the desperation of poverty, and, perhaps most importantly, the dynamics of power and powerlessness. Drew Gamble (A Time for Mercy) and Carl Lee Hailey (A Time to Kill) are both on the disadvantaged end of societal scales. This power-distance dynamic does not play out only in the rural American South, but they are quite prominent in this area of the country.

I disliked some of the subplots, especially the marginal appearance of former District Attorney Rufus Buckley, Jake's legal antagonist from a Time to Kill. Though it may have been a bit of fan-service to mention Buckley as a potential election opponent of Judge Omar Noose, it seemed silly to quote Buckley at the end of the novel, giving him a chance to take a swipe at both Jake and the judge. (Not for nothing, the memory that Buckley was portrayed in the movie by a certain disgraced actor made the character's appearance in this novel feel a bit icky.)

Overall, the novel was a fine revisit to Ford County. While not as famous to literary nerds like nearby Yoknapatawpha, Ford County is the home of setting of several of Grisham's works, and the two names are likely to be irrevocably associated in the minds of Grisham's fans. ( )