"The Innocent Man"

by John Grisham

I have just finished reading "The Innocent Man" by John Grisham. This is his first non-fiction book and is hailed as a true life thriller released by Doubleday in 2006. It begins with and follows the course of events which brought Ron Williamson from a young man with dreams of playing in the minor leagues to within five days of being executed for the murder of a 21 year old cocktail waitress in 1982 ... a crime he did not commit which DNA evidence later proved. Grisham takes us deep into the life of Williamson... his bouts with alcohol and depression, his mental illness and the determination of a police department to arrest and convict him regardless of what the evidence showed. Although Williamson is the main subject of the book, there is also the conviction of his drinking buddy as an accomplice as well as the false convictions of two other men for another murder which took place after the first.

I became interested in reading it as when I was doing a study on the executed innocents in America. While I found this book interesting it certainly, to me, was not a thriller and in fact I found it boring. A legal drama maybe...a thriller...NO.

Reviewed by Ben Young