THE RECKONING BY JOHN GRISHAM

Pete  Banning was Clanton’s favourite son, a returning war hero, patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, and a faithful member of the Methodists Church. Then one cool October morning in 1946, he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and kill the Reverend Dester Bell.

As if the murder wasn’t shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete only statement about it to the sheriff, to his defence attorney, to the judge, to his family and friends and to the people of Clanton was ‘I have nothing to say’.

What turned Pete from pillar of the Community into cold-hearted killer? All his closest family know is that it must have been something devastating and that the fallout will haunt them, and the town, for decades to come.