Krishna
See our reviews of some other books of this author earlier here. For instance, we have reviewed The King of Torts and The Runaway Jury.
The story is about a young man, William Treynor.
Willie Traynor, who did not complete his studies, wants to be a journalist and joins a very small time paper called Post in a one horse town. It is sinking due to mismanagement by editor.
When the paper finally folds over, he buys it off for a small sum (helped by his rich grandma Beebee). Brings up circulation slowly. When Rhonda Kassellaw was killed, the circulation shot up. It was the most brutal murder in that small town. She was a single mother who, after her husband was killed, stayed home to look after her kids and did not show any interest in society at all. Finally she decided to have some fun when the kids are ten and five and goes to clubs. When she meets Danny Padgitt, he follows her a couple of times and then one day comes and rapes her, with her blindfolded. But the kids intrude and in panic Rhonda takes off the blindfold and identifies him. He kills her but when he returns in car, crashes into a tree and is arrested for drunk driving. Danny happens to be the son of a very influential and rich clan of Padgittis, who had their finger in every illegal pie but managed to stay out of cop trouble so far.
When he publishes the gory details of the murder and the arrest of Danny in search of increase in circulation, all hell breaks loose.
The lawyer in court threatens to sue him for a million dollars, but the judge opines that it is a balanced piece. In addition, he refuses bail to Danny in the preliminary hearing.
When a bomb is found in the offices and the photographer is roughed up, the author goes on the offensive, enraging the Padgitts much more. He makes the friendship of a cultured black woman who becomes his lifelong friend.
Willie Trayner is called and humiliated in the court on the plea to change the case location of Danny.
The same lawyer praises his articles on Callie a black woman whose sons are all Professors in elite universities. She, Callie, gets chosen as the last Juror in the case.
The jurors easily reached a verdict but no consensus on death penalty. So Danny gets life, which, in Mississipi means only 15 years, less of he gets released for good behaviour early. Everyone seems to think Callie is the reason for the failure of death penalty plea for Danny.
When a junior lawyer starts becoming a sniper and shoots at random causing chaos, it provides a huge tense colour to the whole city. He was angry that Danny was not given the death sentence.
The story seems like snippets because Bubba now dies and his spinster sisters sell the house and cars to Willie. He also publishes an anti (Vietnam) war piece in the op-ed and instantly stirs a controversy, with both a lot of folk mad at him for being unpatriotic and supporting cowerdice and a lot of others supporting his views. All this is far away from the main thread of the story that you wonder what the relevance of each of these is to the main story. They seem like fillers added to make up the bulk of the book to the prescribed length.
The story again takes off when Willie first is tipped off by the former court secretary that David was almost walking freely (in the company of a police officer) in a nearby town and manages to photograph it and splash it across the front page of the paper, outraging the folks in the city. When he hears that Paglitt has managed to set up a secret, rigged, parole hearing with no one in his town being invited and even the Sheriff being told of it. He goes there last minute and in a frank testimony, manages to get the bail denied.
The story wanders again. A big box store comes to town and Willie testifies to the destruction of the local businesses that have happened everywhere they started a new store – no prizes for guessing which company that John is really talking about. However, it is overruled and the box store indeed makes its appearance in Clanton.
The story finally continues with the first jury who convicted Danny getting killed in ‘an accident’. When the second victim is mowed down by a bullet that proved to have come from the same gun as the first, alarm bells go off and all the remaining jurors are protected by both community and the police.
In spite of this, the unknown assailant almost gets the third Jury. When we really know that the three jurors are the ones who voted against the death penalty, there is a momentary confusion but the police decide to haul in Danny Paglitt in order to avoid any more murders.
There are two twists at the end, one unrelated to the main story. The title too is a bit of a misnomer.
These wanderings and confusing details take away from the coherence of the main story but I still think that this is a good story to curl up with, and so will say it deserves a 7/10
– – Krishna (July 2019)