The Reckoning: A Novel

In October 1946, in Clanton, Mississippi, Pete Banning, a decorated World War II hero and the patriarch of a prominent family, rises early one cool morning, drives into town, and calmly shoots and kills his friend and pastor, the Reverend Dexter Bell. When questioned about the shocking crime, Pete's only statement—to the sheriff, his lawyers, the judge, and his family—is: 'I have nothing to say,' choosing to take his motive to the grave. The novel takes the reader on an incredible journey, shifting between the Jim Crow South and the Clanton courtroom where Pete's defense attorney desperately tries to save him, to the jungles of the Philippines during Banning's time as a WWII prisoner of war, and an insane asylum filled with secrets. It is a sprawling saga layered with John Grisham's signature legal suspense and reminiscent of the finest Southern Gothic storytelling.

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