Six days a week, every day but Sunday, Jake Brigance allowed himself to be dragged out of bed at the unholy hour of 5:30 a.m. by a noisy alarm clock. Six days a week he went straight to the coffeepot, punched a button, then hurried to his own private little bathroom in the basement, far away from his sleeping wife and daughter, where he showered in five minutes and spent another five with the rest of his ritual before dressing in the clothes he’d laid out the night before. He then hurried upstairs, poured a cup of black coffee, eased back into his bedroom, kissed his wife goodbye, grabbed his coffee, and, at precisely 5:45 closed the kitchen door and stepped onto the rear patio. Six days a week he drove the dark streets of Clanton to the picturesque square with the stately courthouse anchoring life as he knew it, parked in front of his office on Washington Street, and, at 6:00 a.m., six days a week, walked into the Coffee Shop to either hear or create the gossip, and to dine on wheat toast and grits.

But on the seventh day, he rested. There was never an alarm clock...

"Grisham has returned to the place closest to his heart... The trial is riveting...it's striking how suspenseful the story is...how much we're gripped by the small details."–Sarah Lyall, The New York Times

“Textbook Grisham—and that’s a compliment…a briskly paced legal drama, with just the right amount of suspense, conflict, plot twists, and courtroom theatrics.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch