A Time to Kill

click here for more details, find new or used items	John Grisham Our price £5.05 (£7.99) New from £2.29 Used from £0.01 Pages: 752 (Paperback) ISBN: 0099134012 Pub: Arrow Books Ltd Pub date: 1992-12-03 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 29745

Editorial Review:

Reader Reviews:

Dear Lawdy (1/1 people found this helpful)

I can barely even be bothered to write a review for this awful book. I am British and even I felt it was written to fill every preconception anyone can have of the Southern States. There was a brief description given of what was going to happen to the two rapists when they reached jail and the other inmates got their hands on them. It sounded awful beyond comprehension. Yet Carl Lee Hailey decided against that and gave them a quick death. Should have let them go to jail and take a far worse punishment and saved everyone this book.

Read to Kill a Mockingbrd instead. Beautifully written and crafted with likeable and believable characters. I didn't even like the main character of Jake Brigance in a Time to Kill.....

Just plain awful

A Time to Kill (0/2 people found this helpful)

Book in very good condition and sent to me quickly. A very well written story which took us back to the times of equal rights and the circumstances of the black Americans. The author had us firmly on the side of the killer although he broke the seventh commandment.

Good read (0/0 people found this helpful)

Although Grisham's first novel is not as powerful as The Firm and The Chamber, I enjoyed reading it. That was already a good start for this talented author.

An insight into the wacky american legal system (1/2 people found this helpful)

Another gripping read from Grisham (although it's his first so perhaps it shouldn't be 'another'). Its an interesting tale with a good insight into the wacky way the American legal system works - which seems rather convoluted.

The setting and the characters seem somewhat dated now, but I suppose that's fair as it was written in the 80s, but some of the characters' opinions do rather grate - even those of the characters who you are supposed to identify with. The cast of the novel don't seem to have been thought through from the start, as some seem to drop in for a few chapters and then get forgotten about, while others are mentioned, vanish, and then reappear once you've forgotten who they are.

It's definitely got the feeling of a first novel, but it's a substantial size and the story keeps progressing, even when you can't see how it can possibly fill the rest of the book. I would like to have had a little more detail at the end - it all seems rather rushed, and there is a key scene that I would like to have seen played out rather than just heard about second hand at the end.

All in all, a good idea, but a little rough around the edges. Not unmissable this time, but certainly paving the way.

Rambling on, Mr Grisham (1/1 people found this helpful)

'it rambles..but I wouldn't change a thing' so sayeth Mr Grisham in his own Introduction to this book. Well he's half right because boy does this book ramble and it's easy to see why it was rejected so long for publication. Only after The Firm was this so-called 'debut' novel 'rediscovered'.

The first 75 pages are stonking but the next 350 will challenge your will to continue living. During these endless sheaves of paper I nearly ruined my holiday by gnawing my own arm off. Then at last the trial arrives amidst enough stereotypical characters to start your own Book Club.

The basis for the verdict is so bad as to make you despair - think a sort of seance in the Jury Room. Grisham cannot resist displaying every single piece of legalese he has ever picked up in his career and forcing it into this book regardless. It's such a shame after such a rip-roaring start and the latter is the only reason to give it two stars and not one.

Dodge this one unless you are a Grisham collector.

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