A Time for Mercy

Jake Brigance, the post-modern Atticus Finch, is back in John Grisham’s “A Time for Mercy.” Just as in “A Time to Kill (1989),” the small-town Mississippi lawyer defends an unpopular client in a murder trial, putting his finances and his safety at risk.

This time, the issue isn’t race. Both the deceased and the defendant are white. The dividing line in the fictional burg of Clanton is more about class. The teen boy of a dirt-poor white family is charged with the cold-blooded killing of a popular sheriff’s deputy. The deputy’s not-so-secret life involves ample quantities of moonshine punctuated by raging episodes of physical and sexual abuse. There are shades of gray in what could otherwise be an open-and-shut murder case.

Brigance is a fine creation. He was admirably brought to life on the screen by Matthew McConaughey in “A Time to Kill” and returned in print in Grisham’s “Sycamore Row” (2013). In the new novel, it’s 1990, and Brigance is a young lawyer in debt whose career is on the brink of riches or ruin. He hopes to win a wrongful death case against the railroad, a case worth millions. But…and there’s always a but…he faces financial disaster when he reluctantly takes yet another unpopular case in the insular little town. (In fact, a judge with the Dickensian name of “Omar Noose” virtually orders Brigance to defend the accused teenager).

Yes, indeed. It’s vintage Grisham. One of the bestselling authors in the world, Grisham would not claim to be a great stylist or the master of a turn of phrase. But he can spin a yarn, and he can cut to the heart of matters he cares about, mainly justice and mercy.

The portraits of Clanton’s citizenry are finely drawn, the author avoiding cliches of rednecks spitting tobacco and hurling racial insults. Few contemporary writers know Mississippi as well as Grisham who attended college and law school in the state as well as practiced law there.

When there’s no need for subtlety, Grisham often hits his thematic material on the nose. Lucien Wilbanks, Jake’s mentor, advises the young lawyer to be “fearless, unafraid to take unpopular cases, to fight like hell for the little people who have no one to protect them. You have to reach a level of confidence, Jake, where you walk into a courtroom thoroughly unintimidated by any judge, any prosecutor, any big-firm defense lawyer, and completely oblivious to what people might say about you.”

Atticus Finch would agree.

An enjoyable, twisty read. John Grishan is a master of the legal thriller.

An excellent sequel to A Time to Kill. Jake Brigance is once again dealing with a moral dilemma involving the law versus justice, and once again he is involved in a case that can hurt his family. There are many legal loopholes, well developed new characters, and familiar characters from his earlier books. A very satisfying read.

I picked this one up to check in on the hugely popular Grisham as I’ve read nothing by him for years. I mention it here as antitheses to Another Kind of Eden. The authors cannot be more opposite in their prose.

Jack Brigance is back in this 1990 Mississippi courtroom drama, defending a sixteen-year-old boy of killing a deputy. Grisham never suffers from a clear and definable plot. He is the master of setting the hook and that keeps the reader turning to the page. What more can you want?

Well, for starters, a little raw emotion and depth of characters would be refreshing. And if Grisham ever penned a combination of words that stirred me, I missed them.

Now, if Burke and Grisham co-authored a work…

This is a classic Grisham legal thriller. I didn’t want to stop reading until I got to the end. However, I just wish that the ending was a little more resolved. But still, an awesome book….the courtroom scenes were my favorite!

John Grisham has a way of weaving a story. It never ceases to amaze me how he can provide so much detail and make you feel you are in the room, but it doesn’t feel like he is going through a checklist of describing features and characteristics of a scene.

Not only this, but the details of this story are incredible. John has a way of taking tough topics and really making a person think of what is right and wrong and how our society depicts these topics. It is an incredible read that will make you think and you can’t wait to see what happens next!

Grisham is good at getting us to examine laws, justice, and truth through the hearts and minds of characters, who have slipped through the cracks of society. When laws fail to protect the poor and powerless, Defense Attorney, Jake Brigance (of A TIME TO KILL) is thrust into a case that will consume his practice, threaten his well-being, and change his life. I’ll be thinking about A TIME FOR MERCY for a long time.

Five years have passed since Jake Brigance found himself handling the most controversial and consequential case of his career to date. Carl Lee Hailey, out of his mind with shock, outrage, and grief after his little ten-year-old daughter was ruthlessly, brutally attacked by two shiftless, callous young men, sought justice on his own terms. In the process of defending him, Jake nearly lost everything — his home, his legal practice, his family, and his own life. But after the verdict was announced, the television news crews left to chase other stories, the people of the little town of Clanton, Mississippi calmed down, and things pretty much went back to normal, and Jake, Carla, and their daughter, Hanna, were able to put their lives back together. Jake is still practicing law, Carla is teaching, Hannah is growing and thriving. And for the business folks in Clanton, life still pretty much begins anew every morning in the local Coffee Shop where the waitresses don’t have to ask anyone what they want to order. Everyone there is acquainted and news is shared long before it’s published in the local paper.

But after 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, in a nondescript little house six miles south of Clanton “on an old country road that went nowhere in particular,” Josie “took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and eased to the window to watch” Stuart Kofer’s car as it pulled into the driveway. Josie braced herself as she tried to discern if the car was weaving or under control. Clad in a negligee that had pleased him once before, Josie watched Stuart stagger into the house as her children, Drew, age 16, and Kiera, two years younger, hid upstairs. The three of them have nowhere else to go, so Josie has endured the beatings that invariably come after Stuart has been drinking.

In a mesmerizingly horrifying first chapter, Grisham describes what ensues after Stuart bursts through the door and finds Josie still awake. After a row in the kitchen as the children listen, the house suddenly goes quiet. Stuart stumbles up the stairs and appears to be headed for the room in which they have attempted to blockade themselves. Instead, he moves on to his own room. But Drew has had enough. Believing Stuart has finally killed Josie, like Carl Lee Hailey, Drew seeks justice on behalf of his mother, sister, and himself. He puts the tip of Stuart’s nine-millimeter Glock — his duty weapon — one inch from Stuart’s left temple . . . and pulls the trigger.

Ozzie Wells is still the Sheriff of Ford County, having been elected in 1983. It was a historic election because Ozzie is the first black sheriff and he is deeply shaken at losing a deputy for the first time. Carl Lee Hailey shot DeWayne Looney and caused him to lose part of his leg, but DeWayne remains on the force. But now Ozzie has to call in the Mississippi state police to investigate the murder of one of his own. He warns his deputies to handle the case by the book and put Drew in mechanical restraints (handcuffs), opting to transport Drew and Kiera to the jail himself, accompanied by his chief deputy, Moss Junior Tatum. Kiera has already told Tatum that Drew shot Stuart. She is taken in by Reverend Charles McGarry, a 26-year-old pastor leading the fundamentalist Good Shepherd Bible Church that Josie and her children attended a few times.

Now 37 years old, six days a week Jake is in the Coffee Shop by 6:00 a.m. On Sundays, the family enjoys breakfast before proceeding to church together. But Harry Rex Vonner, a divorce attorney and Jake’s best friend, calls at 7:05 a.m. to warn him to leave town for a couple of days. The Honorable Omar Noose is sure to call Jake and appoint him to represent Drew, despite Jake’s involvement in a large wrongful death case going to trial soon involving malfunctioning railroad crossing warning lights. “Listen to me, Jake, you do not want a dead-cop case. The facts are against you. The politics are against you. There’s not a chance in hell the jury will show any sympathy,” Harry Rex cautions.

Sure enough, Judge Noose appoints Jake and he has no choice but to defend Drew for the paltry fee of $1000. Once again he is in the middle of a controversial case, and starts avoiding the Coffee Shop and the hostility directed at him by many Clanton citizens, especially members of law enforcement, many of whom are his friends and neighbors. Stuart was a popular deputy in a town that respects law and order. Indeed, Stuart’s family members take possession of the house and angrily burn the pitifully few items of personal property Josie and her children owned. Jake soon learns about Josie’s troubled history, and the way she has raised Drew and Kiera. Jake quickly realizes that Josie and Kiera have no voice and no one to protect them, either. Jake’s investigation also unearths facts about Stuart that enrage and disappoint Ozzie, and figure prominently into Jake’s defense of Drew.

Despite the financial and familial strain caused by his defense of Drew, and the potential negative impact on the wrongful death case, Jake soon finds himself squaring off against Lowell Dyer, the district attorney Jake supported in his bid to defeat Rufus Buckley, the man who unsuccessfully prosecuted Carl Lee Hailey. And to make matters worse, Dyer announces he will prosecute Drew in accordance with the 1988 Death Penalty Enhancement Act making it a capital offense to murder a peace officer whether he or she is on or off duty. With no ruling on its constitutionality by a higher court, Judge Noose is not inclined to strike the indictment.

Grisham deftly and compassionately details the progress of Jake’s preparation for Drew’s trial, as well as developments in the railroad crossing case. Although he was a pariah in his own little town during the Carl Lee Hailey trial, it is still hurtful and difficult to find himself in that situation again, and it causes strife for his family, as well. And places Jake in grave danger.

But Jake literally has no choice once he is appointed, and his sense of duty, coupled with his humanity, compels him to put his client’s best interests first. Grisham’s affection and empathy for his characters and their circumstances is evident on every page. (He makes no secret of the fact that A Time to Kill remains his favorite book.) At issue is the question of Drew’s state of mind when he pulled the trigger, killing Stuart, and how the legal system should determine what is just. How is it fair to try any 16-year-old as an adult? While Stuart was passed out drunk when Drew killed him, he had just abused Josie yet again, terrifying her children who feared he had finally killed their mother and they would be his next victims. Drew is a particularly young 16 — small, underdeveloped, and unsophisticated. Was he capable of what Dyer characterizes as “coldblooded murder?” Yet again, Jake finds himself at the center of an ethical conundrum: Was Drew’s action justified?

The story moves at an unrelenting pace, compelled forward by shocking developments and the crisp, pointed, and sometimes ironically witty dialogue of Grisham’s beloved characters. In addition to the others, Lucien Wilbanks, Jake’s alcoholic, disbarred mentor appears, again offering advice, support, and other assistance.

As always, Grisham’s story asks more questions than it answers which is, of course, the point. In addition to the legal quagmire illustrated by Drew’s case, Grisham explores societal issues, including the appropriateness of the death penalty, abortion, the manner in which poverty impacts a defendant’s ability to receive competent representation and a fair trial, and faith. Racism also figures into the story, as Jake is assisted by Portia, a brilliant African-American paralegal who will soon start law school and become a trial attorney herself. He does so by telling his characters’ stories, never letting his narrative lapse into a preachy or judgmental tone. On the contrary, as is his habit, Grisham wants his readers to draw their own conclusions. That is more clearly evident in A Time for Mercy than in Grisham’s other work. Not all readers will find the ending satisfactory.

Grisham again proves that he is unequalled when it comes to engrossing and thought-provoking courtroom dramas populated by colorful, fascinating, and sympathetic characters. A Time for Mercy will delight Grisham fans who are familiar with the inhabitants of Clanton, Mississippi, and surely make fans of those who get to know them through this volume, which can be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.

Always enjoy his books, and always feel like I learned something!!

A Time for Mercy is #3 in the Jake Brigance series by John Grisham.
I enjoyed everything about this book, the pacing, the courtroom intricacies, the cops& criminals, but mostly the characters I love to read about. It was almost un-put=downable !