The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham (Epub)

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, The Innocent Man reads like a page-turning legal thriller. It is a book no American can afford to miss.

Praise for The Innocent Man

“Grisham has crafted a legal thriller every bit as suspenseful and fast-paced as his bestselling fiction.”—The Boston Globe

“A gritty, harrowing true-crime story.”—Time

“A triumph.”—The Seattle Times

User’s Reviews

Review “Grisham has written both an American tragedy and his strongest legal thriller yet, all the more gripping because it happens to be true.”—Entertainment Weekly “Grisham has crafted a legal thriller every bit as suspenseful and fast-paced as his bestselling fiction.”—The Boston Globe “A gritty, harrowing true-crime story.”—Time “A triumph.”—The Seattle Times Amazon.com Review John Grisham tackles nonfiction for the first time with The Innocent Man, a true tale about murder and injustice in a small town (that reads like one of his own bestselling novels). The Innocent Man chronicles the story of Ron Williamson, how he was arrested and charged with a crime he did not commit, how his case was (mis)handled and how an innocent man was sent to death row. Grisham’s first work of nonfiction is shocking, disturbing, and enthralling–a must read for fiction and nonfiction fans. We had the opportunity to talk with John Grisham about the case and the book, read his responses below. –Daphne Durham 20 Second Interview: A Few Words with John Grisham Q: After almost two decades of writing fiction, what compelled you to write non-fiction, particularly investigative journalism? A: I was never tempted to write non-fiction, primarily because it’s too much work. However, obviously, I love a good legal thriller, and the story of Ron Williamson has all the elements of a great suspenseful story. Q: Why this case? A: Ron Williamson and I are about the same age and we both grew up in small towns in the south. We both dreamed of being major league baseball players. Ron had the talent, I did not. When he left a small town in 1971 to pursue his dreams of major league glory, many thought he would be the next Mickey Mantle, the next great one from the state of Oklahoma. The story of Ron ending up on Death Row and almost being executed for a murder he did not commit was simply too good to pass up. Q: How did you go about your research? A: I started with his family. Ron is survived by two sisters who took care of him for most of his life. They gave me complete access to the family records, photographs, Ron’s mental health records, and so on. There was also a truckload of trial transcripts, depositions, appeals, etc., that took about 18 months to organize and review. Many of the characters in the story are still alive and I traveled to Oklahoma countless times to interview them. Q: Did your training as a lawyer help you? A: Very much so. It enabled me to understand the legal issues involved in Ron’s trial and his appeals. It also allowed me, as it always does, to be able to speak the language with lawyers and judges. Q: Throughout your book you mention, The Dreams of Ada: A True Story of Murder, Obsession, and a Small Town. How did you come across that book, and how did it impact your writing The Innocent Man? A: Several of the people in Oklahoma I met mentioned The Dreams of Ada to me, and I read it early on in the process. It is an astounding book, a great example of true crime writing, and I relied upon it heavily during my research. Robert Mayer, the author, was completely cooperative, and kept meticulous notes from his research 20 years earlier. Many of the same characters are involved in his story and mine. Q: You take on some pretty controversial and heated topics in your book–the death penalty, prisoner’s rights, DNA analysis, police conduct, and more–were any of your own beliefs challenged by this story and its outcome? A: None were challenged, but my eyes were open to the world of wrongful convictions. Even as a former criminal defense attorney, I had never spent much time worrying about wrongful convictions. But, unfortunately, they happen all the time in this country, and with increasing frequency. Q: So many of the key players in this case are either still in office or practicing attorneys. Many family members and friends still live in the same small town. How do you think The Innocent Man will impact this community and other small rural towns as they struggle with the realities of the justice system? A: Exonerations seem to be happening weekly. And with each one of them, the question is asked–how can an innocent man be convicted and kept in prison for 20 years? My book is the story of only one man, but it is a good example of how things can go terribly wrong with our judicial system. I have no idea how the book will be received in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, or any other town. Q: What do you hope your readers will take away from The Innocent Man? A: A better understanding of how innocent people can be convicted, and a greater concern for the need to reimburse and rehabilitate innocent men after they have been released. –This text refers to the hardcover edition. Review “A gritty, harrowing, true-crime story.” —Time“A triumph.” —Seattle Times “Grisham has crafted a legal thriller every bit as suspenseful and fast-paced as his best-selling fiction.” —Boston Globe –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Bookmarks Magazine Many of the literary skills that have established John Grisham at the forefront of mainstream legal thrillers (The Firm, The Pelican Brief) find their way into his first nonfiction brief: a razor-sharp sense of right and wrong; an eye for the unjustly accused; and a finely tuned legal mind. The majority of reviewers find Grisham making the transition to “real” life with ease: he turns out a compelling version of this confounding miscarriage of justice. Other critics find that Grisham’s narrow view of the case undercuts its complexity and the philosophical issue at hand. In the end, reviewers’ politics color their assessments. To most, it seems all to the good that über?best seller Grisham is putting his weight behind this thinly veiled treatise against abuses of the death penalty. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. –This text refers to the hardcover edition. Review “A gritty, harrowing true-crime story.” —Time“A triumph.” —Seattle Times “Grisham has crafted a legal thriller every bit as suspenseful and fast-paced as his best-selling fiction.” —Boston Globe –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly 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. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Artist John Grisham –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ The Innocent Man is the true story of Ron Williamson, who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Ron was a severely troubled man, whose early dreams of playing professional baseball were trashed and he spent most of his adult life battling mental illness and addiction, as well as being behind bars for the majority of it. While I did not find this work of non-fiction nearly as riveting as Grisham’s fiction novels, I think the author did a good job of not only highlighting the injustices in our so-called justice system, but also the failure in America to adequately treat mental illness and addiction, as well as calling into question the ethicality of employing capital punishment when so many wrongful convictions are given out. Generally when I read true crime, I’m there more for the details of the case than the personal story. I found it to be the opposite with this book. I don’t think Grisham is quite “there” yet, with his handling of the more technical aspects of the case. At times I really had to plod through. But Ron’s story hooked me from the beginning and I was compelled to finish it out for him. My only other complaint is that I personally feel the author revealed too much too soon. Going in, all I knew was that an innocent man was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. I did not know if he ever got out or was actually killed on death row, I didn’t know if the real killer(s) was ever found or convicted. It is my opinion that Grisham could have revealed these points in a different way and at a different time, to make the book more interesting. Stay away from the pictures if you don’t want spoilers! But overall this is a decent book, and Ron’s story is worth knowing, so read it for that alone.

⭐ In this book, John Grisham abandoned his usual novel-writing and focused on one unfortunate man in a small city in Oklahoma. Already stigmatized as the town “burnout,” once he was accused of murder there seemed to be no getting out of it, though the evidence for the crime was sketchy at best. While this book lacks the homeric intensity of Grisham’s best fictions, it has a lot to say about how law enforcement can be used — and misused — to indict and persecute those whose chief sin seems to have been an ability to serve as a convenient scapegoat. Those of us who have seen documentaries and news reports about Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, in central Wisconsin will see the same sorry process at work in small-town Oklahoma. Now what, if anything, can be done about it?

⭐ Grisham is just the best… this book keeps you on the edge of your seat and makes you want to go slap some crooked cops around. I love that this is his first nonfiction and he slams it out of the park, absolute home run. I got this book because of the Netflix series based on the infamous Ada cases (in my opinion, the book is better than the series). JUST SAYIN!

⭐ This book woke me up! I never realized how many people are on death row or in prisons who are there based on lies, laziness, not caring, or egos. There are serious problems with our justice system when this is allowed to continue. What happened to Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz in Ada, Oklahoma based on untruths is beyond comprehension. As I read the book, I could tell who the real murderer was. It wasn’t until DNA testing was available, did they finally know the truth. The wrong men had their lives ruined for something they did not do! How many others are sitting in prisons this very moment with the same problem? Read this book and your eyes will be opened to the truth!

⭐ Reading this book has been a watershed moment for me. I knew the writings of John Grisham well, having read several of his earlier books. That this book was non-fiction I hadn’t heard until I actually started reading it. All I knew when I bought it was that it concerned a criminal case that employees of my own former employer were involved in (the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, or OSBI). I felt a strong attraction to read any book that concerned the OSBI as I worked there nearly 19 years in the 1980s and 90s. I vaguely remember the criminal case in question, a the murder happened almost immediately after I began work there. Now that I have finished the book, my mind is at unrest. Every OSBI employee the book mentioned I knew, and some of them I saw on almost a daily basis. I always thought that from knowing them that way, I could guess their working style. If this book is to be believed, I didn’t know them at all. The agents were all law enforcement agents through and through, but if their behavior in interrogating suspects is accurate, I am sadly disappointed in my friendships. Due to the two “main” suspects in the case who finally after many years of being locked up in prison for something it was eventually proven they didn’t do (and one actually facing the death penalty) I am in the process of possibly reconsidering my views on the death penalty itself. I always approved before, what with working so long alongside law enforcement (I worked in a clerical capacity as administrative support and finally in the Human Resources Unit) but if false confessions are indeed taken as gospel and the confessor or suspect is found guilty in a death penalty case, we are knowingly leading an innocent person to die, while letting the actual perpetrator go free. During the numerous appeals that automatically come after a guilty verdict, most of the time those are sped through and none of the physical evidence is rechecked to ensure accuracy. This book is making me reconsider old friendships also, and I don’t know how to ask anyone if the behavior is close to being accurate.

⭐ Sorry John Grisham! I usually love your books, and was excited when I saw this one, but…WAY too much description of Ron’s life, and other characters….boring. I’m finishing this book, only because I bought it☹️

⭐ This book, in which Grisham breaks away from fiction to write a true crime book, is too long and too complicated. I really struggled to finish it. It does reveal what can (and all too often does) go horribly wrong when the police think they have the right person (despite no evidence supporting the idea) … but it goes on forever when you know about all you need to know very early on.Disappointing as I am a Grisham fan (normally).

⭐ A non-fiction by John Grisham tells the story of Ron Williamson, a budding baseball star from the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, who was framed by the Ada police for the murder of Debbie Carter. Convicted, sentenced to death and almost executed, Ron spent close to 20 years on death row until he, and his co-accused, Fritz, were exonerated through DNA evidence.This is a horrific tale of wilful miscarriage of justice and the mental destruction of Ron Williamson. Grisham’s deeply researched book lays bare the travesties of justice, life in death row and mental illness.Can this happen again, the sad answer is, most likely.

⭐ The story moves quickly and it is John Grisham’s usual intriguing legal journey to solve a murder case. The difference is this story is true. Grisham did enormous research for the book, speaking with anyone involved still alive and the details make the book persuasive. The character development captured the insanity-producing effect of someone wrongly accused. The actions of the police interrogations are unforgivable. It shows the game-changing value of DNA evidence, not only to convict but to clear someone. I highly recommend it, especially for fans of legal thrillers. The accuracy of the story gives is an extra punch.

⭐ I loved this book. I bought it after seeing the Netflix series. The series is excellent but this book is absolutely amazing. It puts the main focus on the tortured Ron Williamson. What that poor man went through was chilling. To treat a mentally ill person the way he was treated while incarcerated made my blood boil. It is no wonder he died only 5 years after exoneration. To think he came within 5 days of being killed for a crime he did not commit is scary. After many years in prison both he and Dennis Fritz were exonerated for the crime when DNA revealed that the murderer was Glen Gore.Karl Fontenot and Tommy Ward are touched upon but the main focus of this book is Ron Williamson. I have never read anything by John Grisham because I mainly read biographies and non fiction. I was amazed at the clarity and insight Grisham provided without ever getting overly histrionic.

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