posted
Has anyone read this book? Or reading it right now? It was published October 10th, 2006 so it's fairly new. It's Grisham's newest book, and his first non-fiction story.
I'm about halfway through it now, I expect to be done tomorrow. It's pretty short, because it tells the story plainly without much adornment. The story is a pretty horrifying one, more disturbing than anything I've read, fiction or non-fiction, in quite awhile.
The story is about two murders in the 1980s in Oklahoma, and the suspects the police happened upon, investigated, arrested, and eventually prosecuted. Just about every two pages, I've had a moment where I almost literally gasp in astonishment and shake my head in dismay, appalled at what I've read. If you can imagine a Sherlock Holmes story with Inspector Lestrade, Lestrade (Lestrad?) appears as brilliant as Holmes does when compared to him, when you put him against the police of Ada, Oklahoma.
One of the more recent highlights of this wretched story: in one of the trials written about, when the jury is being selected it turns out that one of the jurors was the former chief of police for Ada, Oklahoma, but failed to divulge this information during the process. As soon as the defense attorney found out about this, he promptly tried to get a mistrial and his motion was overruled.
Let's see. The prosecution's case rested almost entirely on the 'forensic' evidence of comparing hair samples, and the defense attorney was blind and had no other help to help him examine this visual freaking evidence. The many snitches used to make the prosecution's case almost all told stories full of glaring contradictions which were accepted.
The man who was eventually convicted of the primary crime in the story, a rape and murder, would later claim (I'm not sure if this has been proven or not, only halfway through so far) that he dealt methamphetamine throughout the area frequently...and that one of his primary suppliers was a local cop. When he stopped dealing, miraculously his favorable treatment at the hands of law-enforcement evaporated.
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Those are just a few examples. Anyway, while I'm not always a fan of Grisham-I was given The Broker as a gift awhile back and found it very, very tedious-other stories of his I've enjoyed. The story is told rather plainly, although it's clear pretty quickly where the author's sympathies and bias lies. He's not trying to be a journalist here. But he's kept me interested in the story, even in the parts not shocking and horrifying about the trial, but about Ron Williamson's earlier life, a pretty sad and depressing story itself.
He lets the interest in the story come entirely from what really happened. It's stories like this, among other things, that simply cannot let me be a Republican. While I'm generally in favor of small government, the police, judges, and prosecutors in towns like Ada, OK are screaming examples, to me, of why small government is not the primary answer to American problems and why it can itself sometimes be a problem.
It's also stories like this which explain why I'm not in favor of the death-penalty. In a country where towns like Ada, OK (in a world, really) I cannot sleep comfortably knowing we're putting people to death.
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posted
If you like the non-fiction story (and not just Grisham's writing of it), you might try checking out the documentary "Thin Blue Line," or the movie "Twelve Angry Men".
Small towns in the Midwest, like the one I'm currently in, scare and depress me
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I've never seen the Thin Blue Line, but the film Twelve Angry Men has nothing whatsoever to do with the story of Ron Williamson and in fact took place in a city.
I do not believe one should be scared of living in a small town. I believe that some small towns are scary.
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posted
I'm a huge Grisham fan, but haven't had time to get my hands on this book yet. I do look forward to it.
I find these kind of stories very interesting to read.
One of my favorites is Devil's Knot. It is just about the most disturbing injustice I've ever seen, and this is the best book about the story of the West Memphis Three.
Thanks for the comments on the Grisham book, I'm more inclined to go get it as soon as possible now.
Posts: 176 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Well, maybe now that OSC has a column about this book, this thread'll get more attention! Heh.
Seriously, a good and worthwhile read and I would say critically important to anyone who is concerned about the death penalty in the United States.
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