A non fiction book from John Grisham published 2006

This is such an unbelievable story it’s hard comprehend that it’s NOT a work of fiction.
The expression ‘fact is stranger than fiction’ has never rung truer than what lies between these pages.

The title is a bit of a misnomer because it’s the story of not one but four young men. Three get sent to prison for life whilst the fourth gets sentenced to death by lethal injection.

In the small town of Ada Oklahoma in 1982 a cocktail waitress by the name Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered.
Two young men both with a reputation for carousing were brought to the police station for questioning. Going on nothing but gut instinct the police constructed a case against both men.
No one in law enforcement from the police to the prosecuting attorney were in the least bit interested in guilt or innocence all they wanted was for the case to be closed.

Ron Williamson, the young man who was given the death penalty, spent 11 years on death row where his health both physical and mental deteriorated dramatically. At one point he was only five days away from being executed when a last minute stay of execution was grated.

What happened to these young men is beyond belief and makes you question the infallibility of the justice system.

Interesting to note that not long after the publication of this book a defamation case was brought against John Grisham and his publishers by none other than Ada police and the prosecuting attorney. The case was thrown out of court by the presiding judge.

An enthralling 4 star read.

I preferred this (and Time to Kill) because he deviated from his usual "prescriptive" writing.

It's unlikely I would ever give 5 stars to non-fiction. This was very good, and, if you really like non-fiction, you might rate it higher.

It is the story, in this one case, but perhaps multiple occasions in this location, of blind stubborness and total incompetence throughout the criminal justice system. The police, instead of using evidence to solve the crime, decided on the perpetrator(s), and then went about constructing evidence to prove them guilty. The attorneys and the judge were not interested in really looking at the accused and the evidence, and the jury rubber stamped it all so those bad men couldn't hurt anyone else.

I do not believe this is the way our justice system usually works, but I am not naive enough to think this is an isolated case. It happens, and it happens more often than we'd like.

Perhaps not as good as Grisham gets, but certainly he is at the top of the field of legal thrillers and his strength and experience comes through here.

This is John Grisham's first foray into the world of true crime. As you would expect from such an experienced author the writing is very good. It is not the best true crime book I have ever read and it's not the worst either. There is a feeling of detachment from the characters in the book that I felt took away from the story. The big issue highlighted in this book is the amount of innocent people, particularly those who cannot pay for their own defence, who are convicted and sentenced to death in America. The cases featured in this book are set in the 1980s to the present day. Some of people involved in very dodgy convictions are still in place today. DNA was a brilliant discovery that exonerated many people convicted of crimes they did not commit. However they should never even have been on trial, sloppy policework and political pressure for a result were major factors in wrongly convicted innocent people. It is worth a read for eye-opening facts that are brought to light in these cases.

הסיפור האמיתי שאותו מתאר הספר הוא מרתק, הספר פחות. אני תולה שני גורמים באשמה:

1. סצינות ארוכות שנמתחו ונמתחו והתגלו כלא רלוונטיות - לא להתקדמות העלילה ולא לאווירה של הספר. תיאורי מצב חוזרים ונשנים שחוזרים על מידע שכבר נמסר בעבר (למשל תיאורי האופי של הדמויות - הבנתי שהשוטר הוא רע ושקרן והבנתי שהנאשם הוא שיכור ומשוגע בפעם הראשונה...)

2. עבודת התרגום. אודה שלא קראתי את ג'ון גרישם בעבר - לא באנגלית ולא בתרגום לעברית - אז אולי אני טועה לגבי מה שאני עומד להגיד. אבל יש לי תחושה חזקה שעבודת התרגום חיסלה את הספר. גמרה אותו. שפה ארכאית ומעלה אבק. ביטויים בעברית שהוכנסו אל הטקסט במה שנראה כמו מאמץ לפלפל אותו. דיאלוגים לא משכנעים.
העברת התחושה האמריקאית של הספר ותרגום הדמויות המאוד דרומיות-אמריקאיות היא עבודה קשה בהחלט. והיא בוצעה בצורה רעה.

עם זאת, נהנתי ממנו לפרקים ולו רק בשל הסיפור הבלתי נתפס.

דבר אחד נשגב מבינתי בעריכה של הספר. לא יודע אם לקרוא לזה ספויילר כי זה בדיוק מה שאני בא לתאר:

הספר עוסק באדם שהוכנס לכלא על לא עוול בכפו. נגזר עליו עונש מוות. בינתיים הוא שוהה בתא הנידונים למוות כשבחוץ עורכי הדין שלו מנסים להוכיח שהוא חף מפשע ולהוציא אותו אל החופשי.
זו הנחת היסוד של הספר וזו השאלה שמרחפת מעל - האם הוא יוצא להורג או שמא יצליחו לשחרר אותו.
ואיכשהו בהחלטה מוזרה החליטו לשים באמצע הספר כמה דפי כרומו עם תמונות של הדמויות (האמיתיות) מהסיפור. ובאחת התמונות מצולמת הדמות הראשית, זו שאנחנו לא יודעים אם יצליחו לשחרר אותה או לא, ולצידה כתוב "רון [הדמות הראשית], שבועיים לאחר שחרורו".
אם מקודם הספר היה איטי, אז עכשיו כשאני יודע מה הסוף שלו, איך אני אמור להנות מהקריאה?? מאותה שניה, כל ניסיון ליצירת מתח באשר לסוף הכביכול לא ידוע של הדמות - היה מתיש.

DNF. True crime tends to be hit or miss for me, and this one's a miss. I just found this very boring. It reads like a really dry report, rather than being a compelling narrative.

Ce poate fi mai rău decât doi polițiști incompetenți? Răspunsul un întreg sistem incompetent. Singura carte non ficțiune a geniului literaturii polițiste dovedește clar că viața bate filmul.De altfel autorul însuși spune la finalul cărții: "nici în momentele mele cele mai inspirate n-aș fi reușit să scot din pălărie o poveste atât de bogată în evenimente și atât de stratificată ...",iar Grisham are numai momente inspirate

Ο Γκρίσαμ στο βιβλίο αυτό μας αφηγείται την πραγματική ιστορία του επίδοξου παίκτη μπέιζμπολ Ρον Γουίλιαμσον στην υπόθεση βιασμού και δολοφονίας της Ντέμπρας Κάρτερ στην Έιντα της Οκλαχόμα. Ο Γουίλιαμσον καταδικάστηκε άδικα σε θάνατο για να δικαιωθεί και να απελευθερωθεί χρόνια αργότερα. Την ίδια μοίρα είχε και ο Ντένις Φριτς, ο υποτιθέμενος συνεργός του. Στην υπόθεση ληστείας, απαγωγής και δολοφονίας της νεαρής Ντενίς Χάραγουεϊ, το σενάριο είναι παρόμοιο. Άδικες κατηγορίες και πολυετής φυλάκιση των Τόμι Γουόρντ και Κάρι Φόντενο.

Full review at Insta @vivliofreneia

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw0KtHZII...

The first book that I have ever stopped reading in the middle was a John Grisham's book. It was The Runaway Jury, and the main reason that I stopped reading it was that it was so wordy, and so details that over a hundred pages into the book the only thing that was described is the clothes in the closet of one of the characters. So many words and so little content. And I, that never DNFed anything, because I really wanted to find the bright spot in every single book decided that sometimes it is just not worth my time.

Unfortunately, Grisham does continue with this line of writing. I gave this book a chance, since I hoped that being a non-fiction, maybe Grisham talent will be easier to digest, and a more interesting storytelling will emerge. The storyline, which is told the best by Grisham in the first 5 pages of the book, is interesting, and could have been a great book. Grisham though, decided to get into the minute detail in the lives of every person involved, and every conversation or investigation. Many of these details and descriptions just got me really bored and tired, and did not add up to the story.

It is a story of a murder of Debbie Carter, and the story of Ron Williamson, a past baseball star that was a troubled adult and got accused because he looked right to the police. While this story is heartbreaking, much of the book is long long long word by word conversations and events. here is a tiny example:
The lying continued. “Isn’t it true you were going to rob McAnally’s? We’ve got people who are going to testify to that.”
Tommy shook his head and held firm, but he was deeply troubled. If the police were willing to lie so casually, what else might they do?
Dennis Smith then pulled out a large photograph of Denice Haraway and held it close to Tommy’s face. “Do you know that girl?”
“I don’t know her. I’ve seen her.”
“Did you kill that girl?”
“No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t take nobody’s life from them.”
“Who did kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
Smith continued to hold the photo while asking if she was a pretty girl. “Her family would like to bury her. They’d like to know where she is so they could bury her.”
“I don’t know where she’s at,” Tommy said, staring at the photo and wondering why he was being accused.
“Would you tell me where she’s at so her family could bury her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Use your imagination,” Smith said. “Two guys took her, got her in a pickup, took her away. What do you think they did with the body?”
“No telling.”
“Use your imagination. What do you think?”
“She could be alive for all I know, for all you know, for all anyone knows.”

There are great books that talk about wrong conviction. Two that I loved were Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton. There are great books about the injustice in the justice system, and one of the best is Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. I would recommend to everyone to read a book about these topics. And Grisham's book is not my cup of tea, because it misses the story that is drowning in words. 2 stars (and probably no more Grisham for me).

Kutboek

This is John Grisham's only true crime book. I found it very compelling. It's the story of two innocent men convicted of murder in a small town in Oklahoma. The details of the miscarriages of justice by the police, the judges, the prosecutor and the defense attorney are too bizarre to imagine, and yet they are absolutely true. One of the men was very much mentally ill when not medicated, and his treatment (and denial of treatment) by the prison system while he was on death row was pitiful. I don't have a lot of sympathy typically for convicted criminals, but I disapprove of emotionally torturing a mentally ill man and denying him medication that keeps him essentially sane. I don't want to give anything away. Grisham gives details of other miscarriages of justice in Oklahoma, particularly in Ada, and also highlights the Innocence Project. Pretty interesting and depressing read.

We have never before quoted the publisher’s blurb in a review, but this one is so (incredibly) accurate that we couldn’t have said it better: “Impeccably researched, grippingly told, filled with eleventh-hour drama, John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction reads like a page-turning legal thriller.” Indeed “Innocent”, about a death-row convict who was always completely and totally innocent, as should have been obvious to all of the police, the district attorney, the judge and jury, and the appeal courts involved, is completely engaging, invoking incredulity and outrage chapter upon chapter.

Occurring in a small Oklahoma county in the 1980’s, it just boggles the mind that the main victim was incarcerated for over 15 years without one shard of physical or legitimate evidence for his conviction – to say the least, it shatters any hope we might hold that “innocent until proven guilty” is the norm. That the man was mentally incompetent (and officially ruled so several times throughout) makes the matter even worse. Meanwhile, two other men were equally railroaded to death row in the same place and time frame, but fortunately, all were ultimately cleared.

If Grisham wrote this book to advocate abolishing the death penalty once and for all, we’re certainly convinced. But we also cling to the aspiration that law enforcement and judicial authorities can and will do better – although recent events may suggest that to be little better than a Pollyanna thought process. Sad... And depressing...