Pete Banning was Clanton's favorite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning in 1946. he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder wasn't shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete's only statement about it - to the sheriff, to his...

"Set in a small town in Mississippi, The Cherry Cola Book Club is the touching and sometimes hilarious story of a young, upbeat librarian who has been given an ultimatum to increase the library's circulation dramatically--or risk having to close its doors. Maura doesn't just start a book club; she gets involved in unique and unexpected ways with her library patrons. She entertains and advises them, she has potluck dinners, and life in the town begins...

In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence ... as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town ... Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until her black father acquires an assault rifle -- and takes justice into...

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.

"Welcome to the quirky town of Cherico, Mississippi, where potluck meetings at the local library provide a feast for mind and stomach alike. . . If some folks had their way, the Cherico Library would have shut down long ago. Councilman Durden Sparks aims to divert funding to a cause dear to his heart--and his wallet. With the aid of gumption and good friends, librarian Maura Beth Mayhew has finagled a one-year reprieve, and the burgeoning book club...

Millie is just a girl. But she's the only one strong enough to break the family cycle. In Depression-era Mississippi, Millie Reynolds longs to escape the madness that marks her world. With an abusive father and a "nothing mama," she struggles to find a place where she really belongs. For answers, Millie turns to the Gypsies who caravan through town each spring. The travelers lead Millie to a key that unlocks generations of shocking family secrets....

In addition to his library duties and his role as doting grandad, Charlie Harris has enrolled in an early medieval history course offered by professor Carey Warriner. His fellow classmates are half his age, except for Dixie Bell Compton. Charlie overhears an angry exchange between her and their professor, and then she shows up at his office asking for a study partner. Charlie turns her down. A few days later, when he hears that Dixie has been killed,...

Mark Childress is the author of the New York Times best-seller Crazy in Alabama. Here he again turns his keen literary eye to smalltown Southern living. Yankee transplant Daniel Musgrove can't seem to fit in at his Mississippi high school. When he meets fellow outsider Tim Cousins, things look up. Then the two boys' battles with a local bully escalate into a violent act that rocks the town.

Sandra Dallas, best-selling author of The Persian Pickle Club, weaves an intricate and sophisticated tale in New Mercies. Nora Bondurant is divorced-unfathomable for a woman in 1933-and has inherited a house from a dead aunt she never even knew existed. But when she travels to Mississippi to claim her inheritance, she finds her eccentric neighbors would rather help her acquire a new husband than reveal the secrets surrounding her aunt's death.

"Sarah Booth Delaney and her friends are still recovering from the attack on Scott Hampton's blues club in Zinnia, Mississippi, and Sarah Booth herself is still overcoming her grief at ending things with her fianc�e. One bitterly cold night at her family's ancestral home in Zinnia, Sarah Booth hears what sounds like a kitten as she passes the front door. She opens the door to find a newborn baby in a basket on her front porch - with bloody footsteps...