A Time to Kill Study Guide

A Time to Kill Plot Summary

Preview of A Time to Kill Summary:

A Time to Kill was John Grisham's first novel, although it did not draw attention until after the publication of The Firm. Based on an actual rape case that Grisham witnessed, the book poses this question: Is a father justified in killing a man who rapes his young daughter? However, when the rapists are two white men and the victim is a ten-year-old black girl, another question surfaces: Is a black man ever justified in killing a white man? Thus begin the events of the novel, when Carl Lee Hailey murders his little girl's rapists and hires young Jake Brigance to defend him. The ensuing courtroom battle brings the local black citizenry, backed by the NAACP, in toe-to-toe combat with the Ku Klux Klan. Can Hailey get a fair trial by a jury of his peers when his peers are almost exclusively white, and how do god-fearing, upstanding white citizens...
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