The return of Jake Brigance
John Grisham is an institution in the field of legal fiction. In A Time For Mercy, he brings back Jake Brigance, the legal eagle star of A Time To Kill and Sycamore Row. The action is set in 1990, in the armpit of a town that is Clanton. A deputy sheriff is shot and killed by the teenage son of his girlfriend. On-duty deputy Stuart Kofer had a heart of gold, was an army veteran, and volunteered in schools and civic clubs. Off-duty Stuart had quite the reputation for drinking too much, starting brawls in bars, gambling, and beating his girlfriend and her kids. Ozzy Walls has been the sheriff of Ford County for over seven years, the only African-American one in all of Mississippi, elected by a landslide, and Kofer is the first man he’s ever lost. Ozzy knows trouble is coming. Jake Brigance, a small-time attorney, is about to be handed his second capital murder case and his best and only friend has just told him to leave town before that happens. After all, who’d want a dead-cop case in uniform-worshipping rural Clanton. Especially when everyone including the judge and sheriff is up for re-election next year and this case would be the perfect opportunity to “get tough on crime.”
Grisham does a wonderful job of showing how quickly gossip travels in small towns, and the day after Jake has been appointed, threats begin pouring in. While the entire county sees a cold-blooded killer, Jake sees the Gamble family as little people single handedly facing the wrath of an entire system and town.
Grisham does a great job of portraying the folk of Ford County and Clanton. He channels his observations about the collective hypocrisy of an entire people through the voice of Harry Rex, the voice of an outsider looking in. At Kofer’s funeral, Rex gives us this zinger, “Hell, you thought Kofer got killed in the line of duty, fightin’ crime like a real cop. Not passed out drunk after he beat his girlfriend.” The dead somehow always manage to find friends.
In the tangled web of conundrums Grisham weaves, Jake must now make decisions that implicate the safety and future of: his family, his law firm, his friends, and colleagues. He must navigate moral and ethical complexities that deal with the nature of killing and its justification. As his cases get intertwined, mortgaged Jake sinks into debt and Grisham sets this lovely potboiler on a slow burn using time to add complexity to characters, switch up events, and give his lawyers plenty of meat.
The trial is where Grisham is in full steam. His handling of the cross-questioning of the witnesses is measured, brief and abrupt. It forces the reader to jump in to ask the questions the lawyers seem to have missed. Like a well-choreographed boxing match, the author hits the high points with gusto. The prose has banter and more than the odd line stays with the reader. Grisham also uses small insider tricks like witness notes, little flourishes that make this book a joy to read. What makes exceptional is how Grisham chronicles the impact of race on the system of justice and the fundamental questions behind the motives to murder. In a small town bound to traditions, can a contrarian lawyer get away with being defiant while still keeping his place among that very community?
Perhaps only Jake Brigance can.