Product Description

In 1970, a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Local newspaper editor Willie Traynor reported the details of the horrifying crime. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi, threatening revenge against the jurors if they convict him, but guilty he was found and sentenced to life in prison. In Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Danny Padgitt gets parole. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1155820 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 372 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Longhaired 23-year-old college dropout Willie Traynor purchased a bankrupt Mississippi newspaper, The Ford County Times, in the 1970s. With his progressive attitude and his British Spitfire car, he stands out in small town Clanton, where people "don't really trust you unless they trusted your grandfather." As editor and publisher, Willie's eyes are opened to many issues, including corrupt politics, the impact of segregation, the role of religion in a small town and the war in Vietnam. His scoop of a lifetime comes, however, with the brutal rape and murder of a young widow. Danny Padgitt, a member of a secluded family of drug runners and bootleggers notorious for buying the law, receives a life sentence for the crime, but he's released only nine years later. Shortly thereafter, jury members begin to die. Reader Beck has come far since his starring gang leader role in the 1979 film The Warriors. Now, he's Grisham's primary reader and for good reason. His southern accent suits the story well, and his flawless first-person telling is utterly convincing. Particularly fun is the voice he lends Clanton's friend Harry Rex; one can almost hear the ever-present unlit cigar moving from side to side as he speaks.
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From AudioFile
Michael Beck's narration successfully captures the ambiance of life in Mississippi in this story of justice, revenge, and the interweaving of lives in a small town. As told by Willie Traynor, a college dropout who buys the local paper in 1973, the story's central thread is the trial of Danny Padgett for the murder of a single mother and the ways it affects the town for years to come. Beck has Willie's voice and personality from the first sentence and is equally successful in capturing the people Willie comes to care about during the years he spends there. Although some minor characters sound a bit alike, this is a minor quibble in a novel that encompasses so many. At the end, the listener almost feels if he knows the people of Clinton as well as Willie does--and hates to leave them. M.A.M. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author
JOHN GRISHAM is the author of seventeen novels. THE LAST JUROR is his first novel since A TIME TO KILL to be set in Ford County, Mississippi.