Grisham, John - The Last Juror - MySQL Workbench MySQL Workbench Abstract This is the MySQL Workbench Reference Manual

THE LAST JUROR BY JOHN GRISHAM DOUBLEDAY New York London Toronto Sydney Auckland In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a twenty-three-year-old college dropout named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

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PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY a division of Random House, Inc. DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Book design by Maria Carella This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress. ISBN 0-385-51043-8 Copyright © 2004 by Belfry Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [March 2004] First Edition 13579 10 8642 PART ONE Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Chapter One After decades of patient mismanagement and loving neglect, The Ford County Times went bankrupt in 1970. The owner and publisher, Miss Emma Caudle, was ninety-three years old and strapped to a bed in a nursing home in Tupelo. The editor, her son Wilson Caudle, was in his seventies and had a plate in his head from the First War. A perfect circle of dark grafted skin covered the plate at the top of his long, sloping forehead, and throughout his adult life he had endured the nickname of Spot. Spot did this. Spot did that. Here, Spot. There, Spot. In his younger years, he covered town meetings, football games, elections, trials, church socials, all sorts of activities in Ford County. He was a good reporter, thorough and intuitive. Evidently, the head wound did not affect his ability to write. But sometime after the Second War the plate apparently shifted, and Mr. Caudle stopped writing everything but the obituaries. He loved obituaries. He spent hours on them.