National Network for Equitable Library Service

#1 bestselling author John Grisham's The Reckoning is his most powerful, surprising, and suspenseful thriller yet. "John Grisham is not only the master of suspense but also an acute observer of the human condition. And these remarkable skills converge in The Reckoning'an original, gripping, penetrating novel that may be his greatest work yet." -David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon October 1946, Clanton, Mississippi Pete Banning was Clanton, Mississippi's favorite son'a decorated World War II hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed his pastor and friend, the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder weren't shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete's only statement about it'to the sheriff, to his lawyers, to the judge, to the jury, and to his family'was: "I have nothing to say." He was not afraid of death and was willing to take his motive to the grave. In a major novel unlike anything he has written before, John Grisham takes us on an incredible journey, from the Jim Crow South to the jungles of the Philippines during World War II; from an insane asylum filled with secrets to the Clanton courtroom where Pete's defense attorney tries desperately to save him. Reminiscent of the finest tradition of Southern Gothic storytelling, The Reckoning would not be complete without Grisham's signature layers of legal suspense, and he delivers on every page.