Review of "A Time To Kill" and "Sycamore Row" by John Grisham

Review of Grisham's A Time To Kill by Shirley Ayres

Carl Lee Hailey’s 10 year old daughter is kidnapped, brutally raped and beaten, and left for dead in the woods.  The three criminals are caught but before they can come to trial, Carl Lee kills them in the very courthouse where they had been arraigned.  Lawyer Jake Brigance takes on the case.  Carl Lee is black and the murdered men were white so in rural Mississippi, the specter of the Ku Klux Klan once again raises its ugly head.  Anyone who takes the side of Carl Lee becomes a target for the Klan, and Jake is the number one target.

Review of Grisham's Sycamore Row by Shirley Ayres

This book is considered a sequel to A Time to Kill and there are references back to that book so I guess it is a sequel.

Once again lawyer Jake Brigance is handling a case in his home town in Mississippi.  This time, he has to defend a second hand-written will from a client who committed suicide.  The new will leaves out his two children and their children and leaves 90% of his sizable holdings to his maid, who was in his employ for the past three years.   Did his maid have an undue influence over his wishes when it came to his will?  Or is there another, more complex reason for his second will?