A return to Mississippi where past and present overlap

John Grisham's debut novel, A Time to Kill, was largely ignored when it was first published, in 1989. A legal thriller that Grisham wrote while he was still practising law in Mississippi, it featured the ambitious Jake Brigance, who defends his friend Carl Lee Hailey when Hailey is charged with the capital murder of two white men accused of raping his 10-year-old daughter, Tonya.

The bestselling success of The Firm (1991), The Pelican Brief (1992) and The Client (1993) led to A Time to Kill being republished, and Grisham's reputation as the pre-eminent author of legal thrillers was established. His latest offering, his 30th in total, reintroduces us to Jake and the world of Clanton, Mississippi.

Set three years after Jake’s career-making defence of Hailey, the story opens with the discovery of the body of Seth Hubbard, a successful businessman who, dying of cancer, has opted to take his own life. Immediately after the news breaks, Jake receives a letter and a handwritten will from Hubbard in which the dead man renounces his previous will, cutting out his children and leaving 90 per cent of his estate to his black housekeeper, Lettie Lang. When it emerges that the estate is worth $24 million before tax, the scene is set for what Jake describes as a courtroom brawl.

Despite being described as a sequel to A Time to Kill, Sycamore Row offers a different kind of story. The former featured shootings, bombings and burnings and laced its courtroom proceedings with drama that imperilled the lives of Jake and his family. Sycamore Row, by contrast, centres on a complex probate case that explores the impact of a multimillion-dollar windfall on a county, as Grisham uses the vast sums of money as a kind of abrasive, scrubbing away at the southern civility and hospitality to reveal the atavistic instincts of the people of Ford County. Central to the story is Jake's own crisis of conscience and his growing distaste for his profession, even as he uses the tools of his trade to repair the damage inflicted on his family during his defence of Hailey.

Ultimately, however, both novels are concerned with race. The central mystery, and much of the characters’ prurient interest, revolves around the question of why a white businessman might leave his fortune to a black housekeeper. “This is not Carl Lee Hailey,” Jake tells his mentor, Lucien Wilbanks. “This is all about money.” Lucien disagrees. “Everything is about race in Mississippi, Jake, and don’t you forget that.”

It’s a fascinating set-up, and Grisham takes his time investigating every facet of the case. What gradually emerges is a mosaic of Ford County, one in which past and present overlap. It is, presumably, no coincidence that William Faulkner is referred to at least three times; indeed, Brigance works beneath a portrait of Faulkner.

Although his prose lacks the sound and fury of Faulkner’s, Grisham steeps us in the atmosphere of the Deep South, conjuring up its languid pace and impeccable manners, its drawls and its humidity, the barbed banter of its cafes and coffee shops, its charming hucksters and impossibly erudite rogues. It is a delicious melange, particularly when Grisham unsentimentally juxtaposes Clanton’s genteel and sincere hospitality with elements of unrepentant racism.

The result may not be the white-knuckle legal thriller that made Grisham’s reputation, but it is a reflective, warts-and-all portrait of a people uncomfortable with their past but proud of who they are.