Pete Banning was Clanton's favorite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one October morning in 1946, he drove into town, walked into the Church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. John Grisham returns to Clanton, Mississippi, to tell the story of this unthinkable murder, the bizarre trial that follows it, and its profound and lasting effect on the people of Ford County. The electrifying new thriller from John Grisham.