The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town

 The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
by John Grisham
Pages: 360
Rating: 4 out of 5

John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction is an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry.

In 1982, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress 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 arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.

John Grisham takes you through the suspects' previous lives, the crime and the court case as well as the fight to exonerate them.

The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grann

The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grann

Journalist David Grann has compiled short pieces of investigative stories he has written over the years, and the end result is his book, The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession. The title is misleading, however: only a few of the stories deal with murder or madness; most deal with some manifestation of obsession, and Sherlock Holmes rarely factors in. Despite this, the stories are well-written and most will be able to find a tale or two that interests them. One standout story includes "Mysterious Circumstances," about the suspicious death of Richard Lancelyn Green, one of the world's foremost Sherlock Holmes scholars not long after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's personal papers were put up for auction. "The Chameleon" is another story of note, which details the life of Frederic Bourdin, a con artist whose specialty lies in impersonating teen boys. Two stories were especially tragic: "Trial by Fire," featuring the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was sentenced to death row for arson and homicide, only for investigators to later find evidence that may have exonerated him, and "Which Way Did He Run?," detailing the story of a NY firefighter who, after dealing with amnesia, was left wondering if his actions on September 11, 2001 were those of a hero or a coward.

404 pages.   

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson  founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system.

Here he recounts many of the cases he worked on, and gives a devastating view of the criminal justice system in this country.



368 pages