A Time for Mercy

Author’s Note

I began writing A Time to Kill in 1984 and published it in 1989. A long time passed before Jake returned in 2013, in Sycamore Row. In between, other books set in the same fictional place were published — The Chamber, The Last Juror, The Summons, and my only collection of short stories, Ford County. Now, with the addition of this novel, a lot has been written about Clanton and many of its characters: Jake and Carla, Harry Rex, Lucien, Judge Noose, Judge Atlee, Sheriff Ozzie Walls, Carl Lee, and so on. Indeed, I’ve written so much about Ford County that I can’t remember all of it.

The point of all this is to apologize for any mistakes. I’m just too lazy to go back and read the earlier books.

Thanks to some old lawyer pals in Hernando who helped me remember details from an earlier career: James Franks, William Ballard, Chancellor Percy Lynchard. They explained the laws correctly. If I modified them to fit the story, then so be it. It’s my error, not theirs.

The same is true for any number of statutes and procedural rules in my home state. As a young attorney so many years ago I was bound to follow them to the letter of the law. Now, as a writer of fiction, I feel no such bondage. Here, as before, I have changed laws, twisted them, even fabricated them, all in an effort to drive the narrative.

And a big special thanks to Judy Jacoby for the title.