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

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

'I couldn't help thinking of Harper Lee's great American novel To Kill a Mockingbird while reading The Reckoning . . .Grisham knows how to spin a yarn'  Chicago Sun-Times

'May be his greatest work yet' David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon?