Showing results by narrator "Michael Beck" in All Categories

Jake is the court-appointed lawyer for Drew Gamble, a young man accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance sees it another way. Once he learns the details of the case, he realises he has to do everything he can to save Drew...who is 16. His commitment to the truth puts Jake's career and the safety of his family at risk.

He was framed for murder. Now he needs someone on the outside to save him. For 22 years Quincy Miller has sat on Death Row without friends, family or legal representation. He was accused of killing Keith Russo, a lawyer in a small Florida town. But there were no witnesses and no motive. Just the fact that Quincy was black in an all-white town and that a blood-splattered torch was found in the boot of his car. A torch he swore was planted. A torch that conveniently disappeared from evidence just before his trial.

When Hurricane Leo threatens Florida's Camino Island, the Governor is quick to issue an evacuation order. Most residents flee but a small group of die-hards decide to ride it out. Amongst them is Bruce Cable. The hurricane is devastating: homes and condos are levelled, hotels and storefronts ruined, streets flooded and a dozen people are killed. One of the victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce's who wrote timely political thrillers. But evidence suggests that the storm wasn't the cause of Nelson's death - he had received several mysterious blows to the head.

When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the hoodlums who have raped his 10-year-old daughter, the people of Clanton see it as a crime of blood and call for his acquittal. But when extremists outside Clanton hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. Jake Brigance has been hired to defend Hailey. It's the kind of case that can make or break a young lawyer.

Fight them, Mr Brigance. To the bitter end. We must prevail. In the long-awaited successor to the novel that launched his phenomenal career, John Grisham brings us the powerful sequel to A Time to Kill. As filled with twists as it is with legal mastery, Sycamore Row proves beyond doubt that John Grisham is in a league of his own. Jake Brigance has never met Seth Hubbard, or even heard of him, until the old man's suicide note names him attorney for his estate.

Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep.And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years.

Pete Banning was Clanton's favourite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbour 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 defense attorney, to the judge, to his family and friends and to the people of Clanton - was 'I have nothing to say'. 

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 23 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.

In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing president grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the president issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power-broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Politics has always been a dirty game. Now justice is, too. In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst 'cancer cluster' in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.

Tiernan de Haas doesn’t care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she’s grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She’s always been alone, hasn’t she? Jake Van der Berg, her father’s stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan who is still two months shy of 18. She's sent to live with him and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, in the mountains of Colorado.

The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe.

When Hurricane Leo threatens Florida's Camino Island, the Governor is quick to issue an evacuation order. Most residents flee but a small group of die-hards decide to ride it out. Amongst them is Bruce Cable. The hurricane is devastating: homes and condos are levelled, hotels and storefronts ruined, streets flooded and a dozen people are killed. One of the victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce's who wrote timely political thrillers. But evidence suggests that the storm wasn't the cause of Nelson's death - he had received several mysterious blows to the head.

In this book, McKnight and Barringer explore the concept of tov - unpacking its richness and how it can help Christians and churches rise up to fulfill their true calling as imitators of Jesus. 

Winner of the British Book Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007.
Trumble: a minimum security federal prison, home to the usual assortment of criminals, drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, two Wall Street crooks, one doctor, at least four lawyers. And three former judges who call themselves The Brethren: one from Texas, one from California, and one from Mississippi.

Winner of the British Book Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007.
They kidnapped him in a small town in Brazil. He had changed his name and his appearance, but they were sure they had their man. Four years before, he had been called Patrick S. Lanigan. He had died in a car crash in February 1992. His gravestone lay in a cemetery in Biloxi, Mississippi. He had been a partner at an up and coming law firm, had a pretty wife, a new daughter, and a bright future.

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Shariat together with his wife, prayed, “Lord, use us to save Iran!” His passion for Muslims stems, in part, because of the murder of his brother, Hamraz, who was arrested in Iran at the age of 16 on a minor political charge. After two years in jail, he was executed by firing squad. God showed Hormoz the best way to respond to this tragedy was to dedicate his life to bring one million Muslims to salvation in Christ. Join Dr. Shariat on a journey out of bondage to Islam to freedom in Christ. 

A true story of Christian devotion and love, this classic shares how to find and enjoy the deep presence of God continually and profoundly. Discovering the pure joy of a life spent in communion with God, Brother Lawrence's realization inspired his Carmelite Brothers to seek instruction from him, despite his lowly status in the monastery power structure. Students of thought and followers of Jesus will find words of comfort as they learn to be content with nothing less than knowing God and feeling His loving presence in every moment.

Two Who Survived chronicles the true story of two children from different worlds: a city boy and a country girl. When the persecution of Jews begins, both are plucked from their reality and thrust into concentration camps. They are stripped of everything they know and forced to navigate a truly incomprehensible, volatile, dangerous, and unpredictable world.

Winner of the British Book Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007.
Rudy Baker's world collapses when the law firm he was due to join is taken over. Suddenly, just before his bar examination, he is without employment and up to his neck in debt. His whole future hinges on his only two prospective clients.