1. INTRODUCTION In 1988, the now-bestselling author and former lawyer John Grisham had his first book published. Entitled "A Time to Kill", the novel presented the story of a small Mississippi town that becomes the scene of a spectacular trial: After two white men rape his daughter, her black father named Carl Lee Hailey shoots them. He then hires the white street lawyer Jake Brigance as his attorney, who also defended his brother in a different case. A wave of racial tension hits the town, with its citizens taking sides, the black community organizing marches and the Ku-Klux-Klan ...

• Word Count: 4938
• Approx Pages: 20
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate