#72 in Thriller
A Time to Kill
- 522
- Pages
- about 10 h
- Reading time
- Film 1996
- On screen
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Our view
“A Time to Kill” is a courtroom thriller that grips and distresses in equal measure. Set in a small Mississippi town after a brutal crime against a child, it puts racial hatred and the limits of justice on trial, and Grisham spares the reader little: the violence is graphic and the characters’ racist language is reproduced unsoftened. This is legal drama with moral weight, not a light diversion.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A Time to Kill is a 1989 legal thriller and debut novel by American author John Grisham. The novel was rejected by many publishers before Wynwood Press eventually gave it a 5,000-copy printing. When Doubleday published The Firm, Wynwood released a trade paperback of A Time to Kill, which became a bestseller.
Reading order · Jake Brigance
Full order & progress →- A Time to KillThis book
7.87.8 / 10 - Sycamore Row
7.77.7 / 10 - A Time for Mercy
7.77.7 / 10 - Sparring Partners: NovellasSparring Partners: Novellas–Not ranked yet
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- FilmA Time to KillIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 568 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 79% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Thriller average of 7.6. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.5 | 25 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 543 | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is A Time to Kill?
It has 522 pages — longer than 80% of the ranked books in Thriller.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Thriller — and a score of 7.8, the closest to this book.
