Because the killer is black and the victims white, the racial implications are obvious. The plot centers on whether the jury can be persuaded to release a man who has acted to avenge a terrible crime inflicted on his family. The question of his guilt is not at issue he has committed the killings in public, in full view of numerous witnesses. The child survives, and the men are arrested, but before they can be tried the girl’s father shoots them both. Readers familiar with southern settings find few false notes in Grisham’s descriptions of his settings in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee.Ī Time to Kill, set in Mississippi, begins with the brutal rape of a young black girl by two white men. Readers curious about the internal functioning of the legal world undoubtedly find his books satisfying in their detailed outlining of the way the law works in actual practice. Grisham’s books are based in the legal profession that he pursued for many years and are usually set in the South, where he grew up and with which he is deeply familiar. This isn’t serious literature.” Still, some of Grisham’s books are set apart from other action thrillers by his genuine interest in, and engrossing presentation of, social concerns affecting modern readers. Grisham himself said that he writes “to grab readers. Some critics have faulted Grisham for shallow character development and for implausible plots other critics point out, however, that popular fiction is virtually defined by such plots. However, Grisham cannot be counted on to give his readers a standard happy ending. government, the Mafia, giant insurance companies. Ultimately they may win out over antagonists of apparently superior strength: the U.S.

They find themselves fighting against overwhelming odds in situations in which they should not be able to prevail. His plots usually center around protagonists who are young and in some way vulnerable, who are placed in extraordinary circumstances. With The Firm, Grisham began a pattern (some critics call it a formula) that he used, with variations, in most of his succeeding books.

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