This is the second book with Jake Brigance as the main character. I read 'A Time To Kill' a while ago, and it has stayed with me ever since. I was slightly hesitant about this book, though, because the case at the centre of it is a will contest. I wasn't sure I would like the more legal theme in it. However, no need to worry. There is a strong human element to this story, and a mystery at its core.

Seth Hubbard, a sixty-eight-year-old, who tends to keep to himself, takes his own life. He has incurable lung cancer, and has recently been given a couple of months to live. He is in constant pain, and he chooses to do what he does. Before he does it, he mails a handwritten will to Jake Brigance, a man he has never met. In this will, he leaves 95% of his $24 million estate to his black housekeeper, Lettie Lang. He specifically excludes his children and their children. Hence, the will is bitterly contested.

I should add this is set in Mississippi in the 1980s, so I assume attitudes were (slightly) different back then towards race.

I love the story that transpires. Seth's reasons for doing what he did are brilliant. There is a set of lawyers who love taking centre stage and grandstanding, and the story really comes alive with those characters. Similarly, Portia (Lettie's daughter) is a fantastic character. The people are what makes this story. The theme of righting wrongs.

Okay, so Jake's life isn't threatened in this book as in the previous one. It doesn't have the same danger. But it is still completely compelling.

Grisham fans will love this. It is legal thrillers at its best.

Jake. He is such a great character. I loved Portia, too. Lucien is still, well, Lucien. I wonder whether he will try to return to the office full time in the next book.

The ending seemed to happen really quickly. And hardly anything was made of it. It happened. The book ended.

Read 'A Time For Mercy,' the final book in this trilogy.

Satisfied. It made me cross at how people's race still played a huge part in how they were treated this recently. It makes me wonder how the situation is in the Deep South nowadays.

John Grisham is the most successful writer of legal thrillers for a reason. He knows his stuff. You know you are reading the absolute truth of how this situation would be.

It is intriguing and, ultimately, satisfying.

It isn't filled with action-packed twists and turns. Not to say there are no twists, but they aren't fraught with danger.

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Created Jul 09, 2024 at 5:34am • Submit your own review...