When Florry was finished with her birds, she came in the rear door, said good morning to her brother, and sat across from him. There were no hugs, no affection. To those who knew them, the Bannings were thought to be cold and distant, devoid of warmth and rarely emotional. This was true but not intentional; they had simply been raised that way.

Pete Banning, in his early 40s, is a man of few words. When he deliberately guns down Dexter Bell in his church office, he refuses to explain why. “I have nothing to say” is his refrain to the end. Pete’s guilt is never in doubt. En la tercera, "Traición", vamos a conocer los motivos que Pete Banning tenía para cometer el crimen, así como las consecuencias para su familia. Para mí, que he leído muchísimas novelas de Grisham, esta es una de las más complejas y conseguidas de toda su obra. El autor nos lleva de nuevo a su Mississippi rural de finales de los 40, concretamente a Clanton. Allí, un héroe de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y hacendado recolector de algodón asesina, sin motivo aparente, y a la vista de suficientes testigos, al pastor de la iglesia metodista de su localidad, con el que además la familia compartía una hermosa amistad. Sabe que lo van a condenar a la silla eléctrica, salvo que explique el porqué de su crimen, en cuyo caso le podrían conmutar la pena a cadena perpetua. Sabe que le está buscando la ruina a su familia, que depende del negocio algodonero para seguir con sus prósperas vidas. Sabe que el respeto que todos sus vecinos le profesan se va a convertir en odio. Sabe que va a dejar huérfanos a la esposa del pastor y a sus tres hijos, con pocas posibilidades de supervivencia. Sabe que tan solo tiene que decir por qué lo ha hecho, y a pesar de ello, elige el silencio y la silla eléctrica. I've read many Grisham novels and have enjoyed the first several. And I've have even read one recently....last week to be more accurate. In that review, I couldn't quite name the thing that kept me from liking it like I've liked his older stuff. But now after reading this one, I think I know what that "thing" is.Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends, as well as Little League all-stars. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast.” Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. I suppose.” He had toyed with the idea of warning his sister of what was to come, but she would react badly, beg him not to do it, become hysterical, and they would fight, something they had not done in years. The killing would change her life dramatically, and on the one hand he pitied her and felt an obligation to explain. But on the other, he knew that it could not be explained, and attempting to do so would serve no useful purpose.

In 1946, months after returning home to Mississippi from fighting in the Philippines, decorated war hero Pete Banning strolls into the local church and shoots pastor Dexter Bell dead. Even when facing the electric chair, he won't say why he murdered his old friend. The Banning home, a splendid Colonial Revival built by Pete’s parents before the crash in 1929, sat on Highway 18, south of Clanton. The county road had been paved the year before with postwar federal money. The locals believed that Pete had used his clout to secure the funding, but it wasn’t true. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

Success!

This will likely be the most divisive Grisham release in some time, if ever. The author playfully mixes up and challenges the courtroom drama standard he set, choosing to tell the story in an almost non-linear fashion. At the heart of this novel is the question: What makes a beloved war hero and successful small-town land-owner murder his pastor in cold blood? The consequences set in motion by the murder — which happens in the first chapter, and is mentioned in the synopsis — are gritty and cold and real. Grisham’s focus is not so much the legal system (though it does play a part), but the dissolving of two American families. Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law. John Grisham says THE TUMOR is the most important book he has ever written. In this short book, he provides readers with a fictional account of how a real, new medical technology could revolutionize the future of medicine by curing with sound. No es la típica novela sobre abogados y juicios a los que nos tiene acostumbrados. Hay abogados y hay juicios, sí. Pero no son lo más importante en la narrativa. En la segunda parte (hay tres, bien diferenciadas) asistimos a la historia personal de Pete Banning, nuestro héroe, desde que conoce a su mujer y se alista en el ejército, hasta su movilización y posterior traslado a Filipinas. Tras el bombardeo de Pearl Harbour, la guerra en el Pacífico cobrará extrema importancia. Aquí nuestro protagonista será apresado por los japoneses, y asistiremos a capítulo tras capítulo de vejaciones y sufrimientos. El que avisa no es traidor, esta parte está descrita con tal detalle, que a más de uno se le puede atragantar la lectura, pues no se escatima en nada. Es como si estuviésemos leyendo una novela sobre un campo de concentración nazi, sólo que aquí los nazis son los japos (perdón por el americanismo). Y por desgracia, lo que se cuenta, por lo que yo sé, es bastante verídico. Es en esta parte donde la novela alcanza una dimensión que raya en lo soberbio, por lo que intuyo que Grisham hubiese sido un gran narrador bélico. Bell froze and gawked in horror at the weapon and barely managed to say, “Pete, what are you doing?”

Until now. Today would be the last day of his life as he knew it, and he had accepted this. He had no choice. Me ha gustado mucho la ambientación en ese Mississippi rural de los años cuarenta del pasado siglo. Refleja a la perfección el tema de los prejuicios raciales. Clanton es una localidad en la que casi nunca se ha cometido un crimen. En palabras de sus policías, alguna pelea y el linchamiento de un chico negro, pero claro eso no cuenta, no era ilegal colgar a un chico de color en esa época. Por muy sabido que lo tengamos leerlo así de crudo te deja helada.With regard to the Bataan material, it’s not that Grisham isn’t allowed to write about things other than courtroom drama. Playing for Pizza (2007) is an example of a book in which he broke away from the legal thriller groove and wrote a story that was charming, engaging, and entertaining. It’s not that he has to write the same thing, every time out. Whew! This was like 3 separate stories rolled into one. It was the story of Pete shooting Dexter and then his murder trial. The second section was in hindsight - Pete's stint in WWII and his time in the Philippines as a guerilla. Then thirdly the last section which was mainly about Pete's kids - Joel and Stella - and the heartache and confusion after Pete's trial.

Las partes primera y tercera, sin estar a la misma altura, no desmerecen para nada a la segunda, que conforman en su totalidad una lectura APASIONANTE. Y no diré más, que ya es mucho. The Reverend Dexter Bell had been preaching at the Clanton Methodist Church since three months before Pearl Harbor. It was the third church of his ministry, and he would have been rotated onward like all Methodist preachers but for the war. Shortages in the ranks had caused a shifting of duties, an upsetting of schedules. Normally, in the Methodist denomination, a minister lasted only two years in one church, sometimes three, before being reassigned. Reverend Bell had been in Clanton for five years and knew it was only a matter of time before he was called to move on. Unfortunately, the call did not arrive in time. Samuel desperately wants to go home, but it’s just not possible. Partly out of sympathy, the coach of North Carolina Central offers him a scholar­ship. Samuel moves to Durham, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season. There is plenty of more mature talent and he isn’t immediately needed.I felt the second section of the book about Pete's military activity was a bit too long. It was very detailed and in part interesting, but by the end of that section I was thoroughly over it. So much of what was written had nothing to do with the rest of the story, it felt like a whole new book, plopped down in the middle of another. Although I agree that some thought to Pete's military career was intricate to the story line, I think this was a bit too much. The story takes place in the fictional town of Clanton, Mississippi, in Grisham's Ford County. It is the seventh Grisham novel to take place here, following A Time to Kill, The Summons, The Chamber, The Last Juror, Sycamore Row, and A Time for Mercy.