Successful timber man Seth Hubbard, dying of lung cancer and given just weeks to live, drafts a last-minute holographic (self-written) will, one that specifically excludes both his children and grandchildren from inheriting anything. Sycamore Row comes a scant 24 years later, which might have been the longest between-sequel time span of the year had Stephen King not published Doctor Sleep (an astonishing 37 years after The Shining), and picks up three years after the events of the infamous Carl Lee Hailey trial. There Grisham altered Harper Lee’s central theme of justice amidst Southern Racism from false accusation to retribution, ‘updating’ Tom Robinson’s innocence to an unrepentant Carl Lee Hailey’s ultimate revenge against the two white men who savaged his daughter. Many heralded the book as a modern recasting of To Kill A Mockingbird, with inexperienced “street lawyer” Jake Brigance playing the Atticus Finch role in a southern town beset with deep-rooted racist animosity. As such, its fitting he begin the process by recalling the events of his first novel, A Time To Kill, nearly a quarter-century ago. Serial characters have become so commonplace in modern fiction that it’s really surprising the practice has managed to elude John Grisham until now.
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