• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2018 October #1
  Shortly after WWII, a decorated veteran, a genuine war hero, calmly and with malice aforethought murders a Methodist preacher. He makes no effort to conceal the crime, and, even after he's arrested and charged with homicide, he refuses to give anyone, even his lawyer, an explanation. His family is distraught; the murdered man's family is grief-stricken. What makes Grisham's latest something more than a typical legal thriller is its structure. The tale begins with the crime itself, then takes us back in time to 20 years before the murder, portraying the events that led up to it. Finally, the narrative jumps forward again, to the aftermath of the trial. If Grisham had elected to tell this story in a linear fashion, it would have been a good, if unremarkable, thriller. But spooled out in this deliberately disjointed fashion, it becomes a fascinating literary jigsaw puzzle, with pieces of the story from the book's multiple sections finally clicking into place in the end. This is Grisham experimenting with the traditional legal-thriller format, and his experiment yields thoroughly engaging results. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Grisham brand shows no signs of losing its power to draw readers, giving him the leverage to play with the thriller format, as he does successfully here. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

John Grisham is the author of thirty-two novels, one work of nonfiction, a collection of stories, and six novels for young readers.