A Time to Kill: A Novel

• In this story, Grisham hits us with a subject that most might not like to discuss: child rape. Ten-year old Tonya Hailey is brutally raped and almost killed by two drunken rednecks; perhaps the saddest and hardest part to get through with the addition of little Tonya's dream of her father running to get her.
  
  After this horrid crime is committed, Tonya's father, Carl Lee exacts vengeance on the two rednecks, and kills them. He is put on trial, and lawyer Jake Brigance is introduced to us. He takes Carl Lee's case and must face his hated enemy, Rufus Buckley, in court. The days leading to the trial are filled with KKK threats, riots between blacks and the KKK, and several other chills and spills.
  
  Finally, the trial comes and the small town of Clanton, where the trial is held, is occupated by journalists, soldiers, KKK members, and thousands of blacks, as they all wait for the verdict on the edge of their seats....

• 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 recommend to all readers.