The Reckoning

A SMALL TOWN. A BIG MURDER.

A man is dead - and nobody knows why.

One morning in 1946, Pete Banning - war hero, pillar of the community and faithful member of Clanton's Methodist Church - drives into town, walks into the church and calmly shoots Reverend Dexter Bell in cold blood.

In the years following the murder, Banning's only statement is: 'I have nothing to say.' The sheriff, his defense attorney, the judge and his family and friends are all left in the dark.

What drove this man to murder has haunted Clanton for decades - and now, a reckoning is coming...

💥350+ million copies, 45 languages, 10 blockbuster films: JOHN GRISHAM IS THE MASTER OF THE LEGAL THRILLER💥

Readers are raving about The Reckoning:

John Grisham is the author of more than fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

I couldn't help thinking of Harper Lee's great American novel To Kill a Mockingbird while reading The Reckoning . . . [Grisham] knows how to spin a yarn — Chicago Sun-Times

Beautifully constructed, [The Reckoning] captures the racial tensions of the Deep South and weaves a truly magical spell — Daily Mail

In this saga of love and war, John Grisham has given us a sprawling and engrossing story about a southern family, a global conflict, and the kinds of secrets that can shape all of us. From the courtrooms and jails of rural Mississippi to the war-torn Pacific, Grisham spins a tale that is at once entertaining and illuminating — Jon Meacham, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of America

John Grisham is the master of legal fiction, and his latest starts with a literal bang - and then travels backward through the horrors of war to explore what makes a hero, what makes a villain, and how thin the line between the two might be — Jodi Picoult, internationally bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things

When a master of storytelling and suspense takes on one of the most wrenching stories in history, the result is a book that will break your heart, set your blood pumping and your mind racing, and leave you gasping for breath by the final page. I'm still trying to recover from The Reckoning — Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic

A murder mystery, a courtroom drama, a family saga, a coming-of-age story, a war narrative, a period piece: The Reckoning is Grisham's argument that he's not just a boilerplate thriller writer. Most jurors will think he has made his case — USA Today