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The Last Juror

ebook
0 of 3 copies available
Wait time: Available soon
0 of 3 copies available
Wait time: Available soon

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Never make an enemy of a murderer.
In 1970, the Ford County Times went bankrupt - and to the surprise and dismay of many, was bought by 23-year-old college dropout Willie Traynor. The paper's future was grim, until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper prospered.
The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courtroom in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Despite his threats, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
But nine years later, his influential family get him paroled.
And then, one by one, the jurors who convicted him start to fall victim to terrible murders...
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'A master at the art of deft characterisation and the skilful delivery of hair-raising crescendos' Irish Independent
'John Grisham is the master of legal fiction' – Jodi Picoult
'The best thriller writer alive' – Ken Follett
'John Grisham has perfected the art of cooking up convincing, fast-paced thrillers' Telegraph
'Grisham is a superb, instinctive storyteller' The Times
'Grisham's storytelling genius reminds us that when it comes to legal drama, the master is in a league of his own.'Daily Record
'Masterful – when Grisham gets in the courtroom he lets rip, drawing scenes so real they're not just alive, they're pulsating' Mirror
'A giant of the thriller genre' TimeOut

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    The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.

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    This ebook will feature some basic accessibility support but may currently lack some important features such as described images. To learn more about our commitment to accessibility, please visit us online at penguin.co.uk/company/about-us/notices/accessibility

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 2, 2004
      Grisham has spent the last few years stretching his creative muscles through a number of genres: his usual legal thrillers (The Summons
      , The King of Torts
      , etc.), a literary novel (The Painted House
      ), a Christmas book (Skipping Christmas
      ) and a high school football elegy (Bleachers
      ). This experimentation seems to have imbued his writing with a new strength, giving exuberant life to this compassionate, compulsively readable story of a young man's growth from callowness to something approaching wisdom. Willie Traynor, 23 and a college dropout, is working as a reporter on a small-town newspaper, the Ford County Times
      , in Clanton, Miss. When the paper goes bankrupt, Willie turns to his wealthy grandmother, who loans him $50,000 to buy it. Backed by a stalwart staff, Willie labors to bring the newspaper back to health. A month after his first issue, he gets the story of a lifetime, the murder of beautiful young widow Rhoda Kasselaw. After being raped and knifed, the nude Rhoda staggered next door and whispered to her neighbor as she was dying, "Danny Padgitt. It was Danny Padgitt." The killer belongs to an infamous clan of crooked highway contractors, killers and drug smugglers who live on impregnable Padgitt Island. Willie splashes the murder all over the Times
      , making him both an instant success and a marked man. The town is up in arms, demanding Danny's head. After a near miss (the Padgitts are known for buying themselves out of trouble), Danny is convicted and sentenced to life in prison. As he's dragged out of the courtroom, he vows revenge on the jurors. Willie finds, to his consternation, that in Mississippi life doesn't necessarily mean life, so in nine years Danny is back out—and jurors begin to die. Around and through this plot Grisham tells the sad, heroic, moving stories of the eccentric inhabitants of Clanton, a small town balanced between the pleasures and perils of the old and the new South. The novel is heartfelt, wise, suspenseful and funny, one of the best Grishams ever.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 3, 2004
      Longhaired 23-year-old college dropout Willie Traynor purchased a bankrupt Mississippi newspaper, The Ford County Times
      , in the 1970s. With his progressive attitude and his British Spitfire car, he stands out in small town Clanton, where people "don't really trust you unless they trusted your grandfather." As editor and publisher, Willie's eyes are opened to many issues, including corrupt politics, the impact of segregation, the role of religion in a small town and the war in Vietnam. His scoop of a lifetime comes, however, with the brutal rape and murder of a young widow. Danny Padgitt, a member of a secluded family of drug runners and bootleggers notorious for buying the law, receives a life sentence for the crime, but he's released only nine years later. Shortly thereafter, jury members begin to die. Reader Beck has come far since his starring gang leader role in the 1979 film The Warriors
      . Now, he's Grisham's primary reader and for good reason. His southern accent suits the story well, and his flawless first-person telling is utterly convincing. Particularly fun is the voice he lends Clanton's friend Harry Rex; one can almost hear the ever-present unlit cigar moving from side to side as he speaks. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Feb. 2).

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  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:380
  • Text Difficulty:1

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