Grisham's other novel set in Ford County is The Chamber (1994), an equally hard-edged look at racial and legal attitudes in contemporary Mississippi.
The Chamber follows the last month — a time punctuated by desperate, doomed appeals — leading up to the execution of an aged Klansman for murders committed in the 1960s bombing of a law office. Grisham lingers in his portrayals of the lawyers who devote their careers to death penalty appeals — they are idealists who use any means possible, including deceit, in seeking their seldom-achieved goals. Grisham continues to flesh out the observation that a legal proceeding is essentially a contest in which tactics matter and in which the truth is too often irrelevant.
Both Ford County novels present grim and challenging views of capital punishment, remarkable because these are.....
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