“It was long after midnight when the headlights finally appeared ... she watched him get out ... and braced herself for what was to come ... this was the moment he would finally kill her. The kids were upstairs, hiding and waiting.” A gunshot rang out.

Thus begins the chilling first chapter of the new John Grisham novel in the Jake Brigance trilogy which began with “A Time to Kill” in 1989 and then became a blockbuster movie starring Matthew McConaughey as Jake in 1996. The book series continued with “Sycamore Row” in 2013. Although there was31 years between “A Time to Kill” and “A Time for Mercy,” there is only a five-year time difference in fictional life between the three books.

As the novel opens in 1990, Ford County Deputy Sheriff Stuart Kofer, a violent drunk off duty but the ideal officer on duty, lies dead across his bed after viciously attacking Josie, his live-in girlfriend with a questionable past, who remains bloodied and unresponsive on the kitchen floor cradled in the arms of her sobbing 14-year old daughter.

Josie’s 16-year old son, Drew Gamble, convinced that his mother is dead, tells his sister that he shot Stuart to protect them all from the horrific physical and verbal abuse. In his eyes, a simple case of self-defense and survival.

Drew is charged with capital murder. In Mississippi in 1990, this shy, small-for-his-age boy can be tried as an adult. Drew could be sentenced to life in prison or worse — Death Row!

Grisham’s ability at portraying the characters that we’ve met before in Clanton, Ford County, Mississippi, and placing them in that small Southern community awakens memories for those of us that grew up in — or still live in — such iconic places. He reintroduces our protagonist, Jake Brigance, a young attorney struggling financially to support his family and his law practice; Lucien Wilbanks, a brilliant but disbarred alcoholic attorney who is Jake’s mentor; Harry Rex Vonner, a corrupt but likable divorce attorney and Jake’s best friend; Sheriff Ozzie Wall, the first elected black sheriff in Ford County.

Judge Omar Noose knows that Jake is the only attorney in Clanton who has successfully argued a capital case and, despite all Jake’s protests, assigns the case to him, like it or not! Jake does not want to be Drew’s attorney for many reasons: state-funded financial support in indigent capital case defense is limited to $1,000 and Jake is drowning in debt; his family was threatened and his home burned in the prior capital case; his business depends on the goodwill of a community that seems to expect the death penalty for a cop killer; the impenetrable blue line has formed to protect their own against Jake’s exposure of Stuart’s escalating bar brawls and hard drinking. With the unwanted assignment of this case, Jake could use some mercy himself!

As quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Grisham is a marvelous storyteller who works readers the way a good trial lawyer works a jury.” John Grisham was a small-town lawyer for almost a decade in Mississippi and uses that experience to paint the graphic picture of what intricate planning is required for a trial. He has lost none of his finesse in crafting a captivating legal thriller that defies sleep while you must read just one more chapter until you know the outcome of the trial and of Jake’s future.

This skillful author’s books have sold 300 million copies and been translated in 45 languages worldwide. “A Time for Mercy” cries out for a fourth Jake Brigance novel and, perhaps, even calls for a 10th movie to John Grisham’s credit.

Laree Lewis, a transplanted Texan living in Youngsville for almost a decade, has had a passion for good books all her life.