The case involves the death of a young family named Smallwood in a collision with a train at a poorly maintained crossing. Meanwhile, Brigance and his associate Harry Rex Vonner are working on a tort case against the Central and Southern Railroad. He tries to convince Judge Noose to find another lawyer to defend young Gamble but to no avail. Taking the case puts Brigance at odds with most of the residents of Clanton, as well as the local law enforcement community, including his longtime friend Sheriff Walls. After calling 911 to report the situation, Drew used Kofer's service pistol to shoot the deputy in the head. Both Drew and Kiera thought their mother was dead and were afraid of what Kofer might do after he came to from his stupor. On the night of the murder, Kofer again came home in a drunken rage and knocked Josie unconscious while breaking her jaw. Since Kofer performed well when he was sober and was well-liked by his fellow officers, no reports were filed, and Sheriff Ozzie Walls was unaware of Kofer's violent tendencies when he was drunk. Josie called 911 several times but never pressed charges. The boy was accused of murder after he shot and killed Stuart Kofer, a deputy sheriff who was his mother Josie's boyfriend.Īfter Josie, along with her 14-year-old daughter Kiera and Drew, moved in with Kofer, the deputy beat them on many occasions after coming home drunk.

In 1990, five years after successfully defending accused murderer Carl Lee Hailey (in A Time to Kill, the first book in the series), attorney Jake Brigance of fictional Clanton (Ford County), Mississippi, is assigned by Circuit Court Judge Omar Noose to the case of 16-year-old Drew Gamble. As Jake digs into the details of the case, he knows he has to find a way to save the boy, even at the risk of his career and his family's safety. Once again, Brigance is the court-appointed lawyer who seeks truth and justice for his client, in this case a sixteen-year-old boy named Drew Gamble, who is charged with murdering a law enforcement officer and faces the death penalty.

The novel was released on 13 October 2020. The latest book features the return of the character Jake Brigance, a small-town Mississippi lawyer who takes on difficult cases. Print (hardback and large print paperback)/digital (audiobook and Kindle)Ī Time for Mercy, a legal thriller novel by American author John Grisham, is the sequel to A Time to Kill (his first novel, published in 1989) and Sycamore Row (published in 2013).

Grisham a time for mercy review