The Innocent Man ((book review))

I read the book The Innocent man, by accident actually. The first day of our independent reading I forgot to bring my book with me, so I had to go to the library and pick one out, but only to read for the day. I picked this one was mainly because of the title, and because Miss Bullerd said that John Grishman was a very good writer. Well, she was right. By the end of the class period I had completely forgot about the book I originally wanted to read, this was it.

The novel is about a man named Ron Williamson, who grew up in a small town of Ada, Oklahoma. He was the town’s baseball star and was quickly drafted into the minor leagues. When he was cut because of a bad shoulder injury he fell into a deep addiction to drugs and alcohol; which later caused him major psychological problems. In 1982, Debbie Carter, a woman from his home town was murdered in her apartment after work late one night. The case/investigation did not make any progress for almost five years. In 1987, Ron and his friend Denis Fritz were wrongfully accused for the murder, with no real physical evidence leading to them or against them. The police only had their past criminal records to suspect they could be the murderers. Ron spent twelve long years on death row, and he was finally set free after a DNA test proved him innocent.

At first I really enjoyed reading the Innocent Man, and I just could not seem to put it down. But as I got farther into the book all of the suspense seemed to die and I lost most interest. John Grishman definitely expressed his dislike and distrust for the justice system all throughout the book, and did a very good job of telling every little detail. I did not however like the fact that he spent so much time on the details because I think that pulled away from the story, and made it slow and boring. This was a really good book about a story that needed to be told, but I was very hard to keep moving and actually finish.