Product Description

John Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits - drinking, drugs and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept 20 hours a day on her sofa.In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to Death Row. If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4639 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Synopsis
John Grisham's first work of non-fiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet. In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits - drinking, drugs and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept 20 hours a day on her sofa.In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. With no physical evidence, the prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to Death Row.

If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.

From the Publisher
Murder and injustice in a Small Town

From the Back Cover
Ron Williamson was a star college baseball player in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma. When he left to pursue his dreams he seemed destined for glory. But years of injury, drinking, drugs and women took their toll.

He returned to Ada a lonely drifter. In 1982, a 21 year-old cocktail waitress was raped and murdered. After five years of fruitless investigation the police arrested Williamson for want of any other suspect. The case against him was built on bogus evidence and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. He was found guilty at trial and sent to Death Row.

This is a true story of the criminal justice system gone terribly wrong. Of vengeful prosecutors and incompetent defence lawyers. Of a man’s journey to hell. A journey from which he nearly didn’t return.

‘John Grisham has built his stunning writing career on producing brilliant, fast moving, utterly believable legal thrillers. His 19th book however, is so harrowing and gruesome that it just doesn’t seem conceivable. Yet it's true - all of it’ The Mirror

‘A work of art...this is a terrible and beautiful book. The burning care and respect for
his fellow man shown by Grisham permeates and warms every page’Sunday Express

‘Like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, The Innocent Man brings a novelist's eye to re-creating a complex chain of events and human reaction surrounding a crime and its aftermath’ Sunday Times

Customer Reviews

If you like True Crime
I don't bother with the John Grisham airport fodder, but as this was a true crime account I thought I'd give it a go. The fact that Grisham can obviously write thrillers really helps the narrative in this book which otherwise might be a bit slight. He pulls you through the dull sections, doesn't spend too much time on the legal wrangles and gives you just enough colour to keep the interest going. The strongest part of the book was his depiction of Death Row and for those of you who think that prison might be some sort of easy ride, this will change your mind. I finished the book feeling some of the outrage and anger that Grisham has over a justice system that so easily can fall over and, that when it does, it's human beings, families and communities that fall with it. The system isn't perfect, but it's all we've got, and books like this, you hope, will challenge it and strive to make it better.

An interesting story of injustice
After a long time of not having picked up a book by John Grisham, an author who probably suffers from overkill, I found this to be a pleasurable - and at the same time, a disturbingly unpleasurable - read. The story centres around Ron Williamson, a former baseball player with a reputation for drinking and womanising: not the most sympathetic character. Yet, Grisham turns out an engaging work of journalism.

My one criticism is that it does seem one-sided, with Grisham carrying out a hatchet job (if you pardon the pun) on many members of the Oklahama police, judiciary, etc for their part in Williamson's wrongful conviction. Grisham is probably right that Ron Williamson is a victim of an horrendous injustice. Unfortunately, we do not know because the book was sourced from those closest to Ron Williamson and the other exhonerated men. The strongest message to come from the book is that the death penalty can hardly be justified. It's a shame that we have to be told this in the twenty-first century, but it's still a worthwhile read.

A valuable exposé
By now, there is no excuse for starting to read this book believing that it is written to Grisham's usual formula. This is not a brilliantly written legal thriller. It is an excellent piece of investigative journalism, and it is very clear that John Grisham has invested a huge amount of effort into his investigations.

He tells the true story of several wrongful convictions, concentrating mainly on the central character, Ron Williamson, who spends a considerable proportion of his life on death row and in other detention centres.

Grisham exposes the flaws in the American justice system, which is under constant pressure from the conviction-hungry public who will not allow the truth to stand in the way of their passionate pursuit of somebody to blame for any heinous crime, who, whether innocent or guilty, will receive the heavy punishment that such a terrible criminal would deserve. This leads to deliberate, and institutional, incompetence amongst the investigators and the lawyers.

For me, the book is far too long. I think that Grisham could have condensed the results of his rigorous investigations into about half the pages that he has filled. It is clear, from early on, what the outcomes would be. However, it is a valuable exposé, and I hope that US citizens will use it as the basis for successful campaigns against injustice in The Land of the Free.