Used. Mass Market Paperback. John Grisham takes a detour from his standard courtroom stomping grounds to deliver a riveting, post-WWII Southern gothic that starts with an undeniable bang. Pete Banning—decorated war hero, devoted family man, and pillar of 1946 Clanton, Mississippi—walks calmly into his local church one morning and shoots the pastor dead, offering only a chilling five-word defense: "I have nothing to say. " What makes this historical drama tick isn't a traditional whodunit, but a stubborn, suffocating *why*-dunit as Pete takes his steadfast silence all the way toward the gallows. It is a brooding, slow-burn mystery about loyalty, buried trauma, and the high cost of keeping devastating secrets to the grave.