This is a legal thriller written by former criminal defense attorney John Grisham. The reason I thought that the first novel written by him is awesome is because it not only penetrates deep into the entrenched system of racism in America, it also describes the love and duty of a father. Carl Lee Bailey murdered brutally the rapists who harmed his twelve year old daughter teaches me how much a father can do to protect his little girl. Moreover, it also tells me how unfair the justice system was to blacks in general compared to whites. I was also very shocked at the Ku Klux Klan and how cruel they can be in terms of killing innocent African Americans and burning any traitors at the cross.

This novel serves as a reminder to people working in the legal professions today on how our justice system should conform with the foundation of democracy—racial equality. It also delivers a message to its readers in that laws can be interpreted in different ways and we should have sympathy for each other. Supposedly, Carl Lee Bailey should be charged with capital punishment, but because he killed the two rapists for the sake of his daughter, he was released at last. The jurors knew that every father would perhaps do the same for their own daughter, which is the reason they decided that Bailey was not guilty.

-Coreen C. 

A Time to Kill by John Grisham is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive.