A Time to Kill Book

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by: John Grisham

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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: Rating: - Grisham's best A Time to Kill is, in my opinion, Grisham's finest work (standing just a little higher that The Firm). It was also Grisham's first book and I read somewhere that he had it privately published because, at the time, no-one would touch it. (Shows what unknown struggling authors have to put up with, doesn't it!). Anyway, the good news is that, after Grisham hit the top-sellers lists, A Time to Kill was republished and it, too, became a bestseller. It's a gripping tale of a young lawyer defending a black Vietnam war hero who has killed two white men (who raped his daughter). The tale is a mixture of the Grisham-style legal story and of America's tragic history of slavery and black repression. Grisham tells the story perfectly. His dialogue is spot on. There is one, superb passage where the local reverend is preaching to his flock. If you can imagine a 'Blues Brothers' type of scenario with 'I have seen the light' coming from the congretation as the preacher winds them up, you'll get the picture. Carl Lee Hailey (the Vietnam war veteran) gets hold of an M-16, kills the rapists on the courthouse steps, then turns for help to attorney Jake Brigance. Some of the local folk want to give Carl Lee a second medal for his action, but premeditated murder is hard to ignore, and anyway, the town is divided. Blacks note that a white man shooting a black rapist would be acquitted. The KKK turns up the heat. The NAACP gets involved. Due to the publicity, a big local firm of lawyers get in on the act and try to outmaneuver Jake. Jake has a secret weapon though - his brilliant, but disbarred ex-partner. As Amazon's own review says''Crosses burn, people die, crowds chant "Free Carl Lee!" and "Fry Carl Lee!" in the antiphony of America's classical tragedy.' A superb book. A wonderful story, brilliantly written. Rating: - An Amzing Story That Sounds So Real Even though you don't know Carl Lee Hailey at the beginning of this story, you become him with what you read. In the beginning, a little black girl in a southern community is brutally raped and almost murdered by two drunken white men. What happens? The two men get caught and are sent to trial. Then it happens - the little girls father gets hold of an AK-47 and takes justice into his own hands. What happens from this event is spellbinding. The little community is the focus of the country. It becomesinvaded with the press, activists, and the KKK. Attorney Jake Brigance is choosen to represent the defendant in a capital murder case that is only the side focus of this story. All hell breaks loose in the town as everybody agress and disagrees over what has been done. This book holds it all, from obs, to burning crosses, to destruction and threats, it is a masterpiece of fiction that goes to the heart of one question: can a black man reeive a fair trial in the south? Mitigating circumstances surround this question, and you are left to decide if what has happened is right. The first is always the best, and this will always remain my Grisham favorite. Don't speed read it, but take time to become the characters, because when you put the book down, you will never forget them. Rating: - Brycass5 A Time To Kill, by John Grisham, is the story of a black man whose young daughter was brutally raped by two white, southern "rednecks". This book dramatically shows the reality of the racism that is evident in the South, even today. Carl Lee, the father of the young girl, is a black Vietnam War Veteran. He lives in Mississippi with his wife and children. One afternoon when Carl's young daughter, Tanya, was walking home, she was abducted by the two rednecks, beaten and brutally raped. The men were brought to trial. The jury, the witnesses, the judge were all white. Carl, expecting a verdict of not guilty, went to the courthouse armed to take his own revenge. After shooting the men he is arrested for murder and held for trial. During the trial scene's you could feel the emotions of the people in the courtroom, the anger, the sadness, and the helplessness. Whatever the emotion it could be felt. Carl's bold act of revenge and the trial kept me reading and trying to anticipate what the outcome would be. This book took me on a roller coaster of emotions. I could only imagine the anger and helplessness that Carl must have felt having his daughter violated in such a brutal way. This was a brilliantly written book that I would recommemd to all readers.

A Time to Kill Book

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