The Innocent Man | 
 enlarge | Author: John Grisham
Publisher: Dell
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
New (56) Used (231) Collectible (2) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  75 reviews
Sales Rank: 483
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0440243831
Dewey Decimal Number: 345.76602523
EAN: 9780440243830
ASIN: 0440243831
Publication Date: November 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In the town of Ada, Oklahoma, Ron Williamson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. But on his way to the Big Leagues, Ron stumbled, his dreams broken by drinking, drugs, and women. Then, on a winter night in 1982, not far from Ron’s home, a young cocktail waitress named Debra Sue Carter was savagely murdered. The investigation led nowhere. Until, on the flimsiest evidence, it led to Ron Williamson. The washed-up small-town hero was charged, tried, and sentenced to death—in a trial littered with lying witnesses and tainted evidence that would shatter a man’s already broken life…and let a true killer go free. Impeccably researched, grippingly told, filled with eleventh-hour drama, John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction reads like a page-turning legal thriller. It is a book that will terrify anyone who believes in the presumption of innocence—a book no American can afford to miss.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 70 more reviews...
 A valuable expose July 22, 2008
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 expose, and I hope that US citizens will use it as the basis for successful campaigns against injustice in The Land of the Free.
 Grishams best book July 5, 2008
I've read this book twice now, and I'm still enamored with it. I found the characters interesting, and sad. The story was well told, and was an eye opener. What really gets me is that this book was a true story, and I feel horrible for the miscarriage of justice that two men, and their families, had to go through.
An excellent read.
 dull July 4, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The most excruciatingly dull grisham book and the first I just can't finish. I tried over and over to get engaged in the story and the amount of boring detail just killed my interest. Don't buy this book and if you get it for free don't read it. Too many more interesting options.
 Not the usual Grisham July 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved The Painted House and A Time To Kill but those were fiction. About halfway through The Innocent Man, I started speed-reading and finished in about 20 minutes. Maybe real people are boring?
Solid Enjoyable Non-Fiction June 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
John Grisham is one of the most successful authors of all time. He is a machine, constantly grinding out new dramatic fiction pieces like clockwork, and he has established a fan base that will never leave him, no matter what he writes.
Grisham is an author you can trust, and when I say that I don't meant that he is someone who puts out easy work, but I mean that the majority of his stories are going to be a guaranteed compelling read.
The Innocent Man is Grisham's non-fiction work originally pulped in 2006. Grisham read a piece in the New York Times about Ronnie Williams of Oklahoma, and was intrigued by his story. So after some preliminary work, he spent the next 18 months digging through the Ron Williams history, which included interviews with family, law enforcement, and going over the case transcripts and much more work for this book. And how an author who comes out with a best seller every year has time to research this story for 18 months is beyond this blogger's imagination. Either Grisham has a clone or he is a serious workaholic.
The book is a good read. The name can tell you what it is about, and after the first five chapters or so, you figure out who is going to take the fall for a crime that they didn't commit (If your like me and have no knowledge of the actual story which made national news). There are some fairly gruesome details about an actual murder, but it is not any worse than anything you would see on a legal drama on broadcast TV these days.
The injustice of a small town justice system is the theme, and the victim is bounced around without being given a fair chance. This book shows how an innocent man can be set up to fall due to bad police work, a bad public defender and a home town judge who wants to get reelected. For example, the `Innocent Man' is given a public defender that is blind, and can't dispute any of the shoddy physical evidence that is brought before the trial.
Now this isn't like the TV series, The Fugitive, where the main character is squeaky clean and easy to relate to. This Innocent Man has a shady history with some serious character flaws and mental health issues, but the fact still remains that he was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.
This book is enjoyable if you are a true crime fan, you are a fan of the author, or if you just like a good legal drama, as this reads just as good as any legal fiction that is put out.
And a fair warning for readers of the paper back version (the hardback version may be the same, I don't know) but the pictures inserted into the middle of the book reveal the ending of the book, so don't look them over if you don't want to know what happens. They're not huge spoilers, but they are big enough.
|
|
|
