The innocent man

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Average Rating
Publisher
Doubleday
Publication Date
[2006]
Language
English

Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LOOK FOR THE NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES • “Both an American tragedy and [Grisham’s] strongest legal thriller yet, all the more gripping because it happens to be true.”—Entertainment Weekly John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction: a true crime masterpiece that tells the story of small town justice gone terribly awry. 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. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa. In 1982, a twenty-one-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.Don’t miss Framed, John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, co-authored with Centurion Ministries founder Jim McCloskey.

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ISBN
9780385517232

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Whether from the point of view of the lawyer (Unbillable Hours) or the accused (The Innocent Man), these gripping, moving true crime stories of overturning wrongful convictions plunge readers into the murky waters of the American legal system. -- Melissa Gray
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Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
David Baldacci writes high-energy suspense stories featuring corruption and conspiracies. Complex plots place characters in tense situations, which, it is important to note, can sometimes lead to more graphic violence than found in John Grisham's works. -- Kim Burton
In their novels, both John Grisham and Brad Meltzer portray young, vulnerable lawyers caught in difficult situations, pitted against powerful but corrupt enemies. Their books are characterized by fast pacing, provocative storylines, suspense and danger, along with sympathetic characters. -- Victoria Fredrick
John Grisham and Greg Iles write fast-paced legal thrillers. Often set in small Southern towns in the U.S., these suspenseful stories include a heavy emphasis on the personal lives of their characters and how their experiences influence their perspective and attitudes toward the legal cases they tackle. -- Halle Carlson
Both authors use their career experiences to write compelling legal thrillers starring attorneys who take on cases in pursuit of the truth that could cost them their lives. -- CJ Connor
These Southern writers rely upon their backgrounds as attorneys to create suspenseful thrillers with authentic details. Grisham's suspenseful legal thrillers often turn upon points of law. Morris's own voices novels put Black women front and center, whether as attorneys or innocent women running from the law. -- Michael Shumate
Fans of suspenseful and dramatic legal thrillers should explore the works of both John Grisham and Stephen L. Carter. Carter's stories tend to intensify as they progress, while Grisham's plots are propulsive from page one. -- Stephen Ashley
Lisa Scottoline and John Grisham's novels share a legal focus, sympathetic characters, fast pacing, and unexpected plot twists. There's more humor and sarcasm in Scottoline's stories, but both have a similarly suspenseful tone. -- Victoria Fredrick
John Grisham and Alafair Burke are known for their suspenseful and dramatic legal thrillers in which their relatable protagonists take on enormously challenging cases. Burke's work tends to be a bit grittier and darker than Grisham's. -- Stephen Ashley
Fans of Steve Martini's novels may also enjoy John Grisham's cinematic and page-turning legal thrillers. Both authors feature sympathetic protagonists -- often portraying lawyers as underdogs, fighting for justice. For Martini, investigation plays an important role, with actual courtroom drama often taking second place. -- Victoria Fredrick
Though there's a bit more wit in Marcia Clark's writing than John Grisham's more dramatic tales, both authors are known for keeping readers on the edge of their seats with their suspenseful and compelling legal thrillers. -- Stephen Ashley
Although Scott Turow's stories are more realistic and do not move at the same rapid pace as John Grisham's, readers who enjoy issue-oriented legal thrillers may appreciate each author's different strengths. -- Victoria Fredrick
Stuart Woods and John Grisham are both known for their provocative stories and relentless pacing. While there are suspense, action, and plot twists in both authors' novels, there's more sex and violence in Woods' books than in Grisham's. -- Victoria Fredrick

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

Grisham turns his considerable procedural skills to nonfiction with this examination of a wrongful-conviction case that incarcerated a man on Death Row for 11 years, breaking him in body and spirit. Grisham decided to try his hand at true crime after reading a 2004 New York Times obituary for Ron Williamson, a former Oakland A’s baseball player and Death Row inmate who was one of nearly 200 people exonerated through the efforts of the Innocence Project. Grisham begins with the backstory to the murder of a young cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, in 1982, moving on to the crime scene and the life of Williamson, who was convicted of the murder. Off to a flying start with the murder itself, the narrative starts to sag with Grisham’s overly long examination of Williamson’s life prior to his arrest. It picks up again with the trial (Grisham’s wheelhouse, of course) and the litany of junk science, jailhouse snitches, and shoddy police work that led to Williamson’s conviction. Unfortunately, the rollercoaster slows once again with Grisham’s lengthy recital of what happened to Williamson in prison and what led to his exoneration. Ironically, the very qualities that make Grisham’s legal thrillers compelling make this nonfiction work often tedious. Painstaking accounts of procedure and delineation of character are better suited to a venue supported by a spine of suspense. Grisham’s plot-driven fiction fans may find themselves more than a little bored by this poorly paced account."--"Fletcher, Connie" Copyright 2007 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly Review

Grisham's first work of nonfiction focuses on the tragedy of Ron Williamson, a baseball hero from a small town in Oklahoma who winds up a dissolute, mentally unstable Major League washout railroaded onto death row for a hometown rape and murder he did not commit. Judging by this author-approved abridgment, Grisham has chosen to present Williamson's painful story (and that of his equally innocent "co-conspirator," Dennis Fritz) as straightforward journalism, eschewing the more familiar "nonfiction novel" approach with its reconstructed dialogues and other adjustments for dramatic purpose. This has resulted in a book that, while it includes such intriguing elements as murder, rape, detection and judicial injustice, consists primarily of objective reportage, albeit shaded by the now-proven fact of Williamson's innocence. The absence of dialogue or character point of view could make for a rather bland audio. Boutsikaris avoids that by reverting to what might be called old-fashioned round-the-campfire storytelling, treating the lengthy exposition to vocal interpretations, subtle and substantial. He narrates the events leading up to the 1982 rape and murder of a young cocktail waitress with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity, moving on to astonishment at the prosecution's use of deceit and false testimony to convict Williamson and Fritz and, eventually, elation at the exoneration of the two innocent men. Throughout, he maintains an appealing conversational tone, an effect made all the more remarkable by the book's nearly total absence of conversation. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Library Journal Review

(See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/06) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Library Journal Reviews

Grisham does nonfiction (his first ever), and that's all we know. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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