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John Grisham is a famous author. His first book was A Time to Kill, and it’s about a lawyer who defends two African Americans who killed the men who raped their daughter. The Last Juror is his seventeenth novel and is about Willie Traynor, who buys the newspaper that he works for so that he can run it himself.

Shortly after he starts working as an editor, Willie learns about Rhoda Kassellaw’s death. Although she was murdered brutally, Danny Padgitt is accused of the crime. It turns out that Willy has a photo of Danny covered in blood shortly after his arrest and Lucien Wilbanks accuses him of sensationalism. However, the judge believes nothing wrong has been done by the paper so far so there is no change in venue for trial.

As Willie continues covering the Danny Duke case, subscriptions to his paper increase. He also faces threats and intimidation from both sides of the community. To protect himself, he buys a gun and continues writing about Danny’s trial. Also, he interviews a prominent African-American family in town known as the Ruffins for their opinion on an article

Meanwhile, jury selection begins for Danny’s trial. Since the Ruffin family is wealthy and unscrupulous, there is concern that they will try to bribe the jury. Callie Ruffin, who recently interviewed with Willie about her experience as an African-American in Clanton and her opposition to capital punishment, is selected as a juror. However, she also feels it’s important to serve on a jury because of its civil rights implications; so she accepts the position despite not wanting to have anything to do with capital punishment cases.

Danny is soon convicted of rape and murder, largely due to the testimony of a single witness. Before the jury can sentence Danny, he threatens to have all of them killed if they don’t give him life in prison instead of death. The jury ultimately decides to sentence Danny based on his threat rather than giving him death penalty. From inside prison, Danny begins to enact revenge by killing the witness who ensured his conviction from another county.

Some years pass without incident. Willie’s paper becomes a major force in the community, and he continues to keep an eye on Danny. However, one day, nine years after his first parole hearing and shortly after his release from prison, two of the original jurors are killed by a sniper.

Danny is suspected of killing the jurors, but there isn’t any proof. Many people are scared because they think it’s Danny who’s doing it. The black community supports Callie and tries to protect her from getting killed by Danny. One juror almost got killed, so he might be next on the list if he doesn’t change his mind about giving Danny a death sentence or something like that.

After the third murder attempt, Danny is arrested. During his bail hearing, he was shot by a sniper hiding in the rafters who later commits suicide. The killer is Hank Hooten, one of the prosecutors on the original case who also had an affair with Rhoda Kassellaw’s mother and wanted revenge for not getting a death sentence for Danny after killing Rhoda.

Willie looks into Hank’s past and finds out that he was in a mental hospital because of his obsession over Rhoda. He also discovers that, although Danny murdered Rhoda, Hank was responsible for all the other murders. Willie publishes this information and it becomes the last big story for his newspaper before he sells it off to another company. Shortly after selling the paper, Callie dies from a heart attack. His final act as editor is writing her obituary.