Law professor Ray Atlee and his troublesome younger brother Forrest are called home to Clanton, Mississippi by their dying father, Judge Atlee, but when the judge dies before the meeting can take place, Ray is left to untangle an old family secret.

In this novel the author takes you back to where it all began in A Time to Kill. Now we return to that famous courthouse in Clanton as Jake Brigance once again finds himself embroiled in a fiercely controversial trial; a trial that will expose old racial tensions and force Ford County to confront its tortured history. Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves...