John Grisham

Murder and Injustice in a Small Town

The Innocent Man

This read was scarier than any Stephen King read. A true real life horror novel. It makes you wonder how many men were put to death who were entirely innocent. I can't believe this was allowed to go on and wonder how many cases had bad endings. It's a shame to everyone involved, the victim, the victims' families, and the innocent men blamed for the deaths. To know that Karl Fontenot and Tommy Ward are still imprisoned is haunting and a real injustice. I hope that the true killers get caught so that the victims and their families can find peace.

Sarah Campbell

Colleen

3.5 Stars

*A terrifying True Crime story about what can happen when the justice system fails*
 

The Innocent Man was a bookclub selection. I wasn’t sure about this book at first. I’ve read plenty of True Crime, but the ones I read usually focus more on crime solving and criminal profiling rather than the legal system. It did take me a while to get into the book. It starts out very dense with a lot of info-dumping. So it took me weeks to get through the first quarter. But once I was engaged it only took me a couple of days to finish the rest of the book.
 
I try to take things with a grain of salt, so just because the cover proclaimed the man was wrongly convicted didn’t mean I was going to jump to that conclusion too. But having read the book, this was unquestionably a massive miscarriage of justice. And it wasn’t just once instance or one person to blame. There was a repeated disregard of law by law enforcement, the legal system, and the prison system.
 
The book explores the history of two different murder cases that happened in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma in the early 1980’s and the four innocent men that were accused of committing those crimes. The way the cases were handled was inexcusable even for the times. From negligence to personal vendettas, these cases are pretty much the epitome of everything that should not happen in the justice system. They show just how easy it is for an innocent person to have their life ruined by false accusations.
 
Other than the slow, dense start, I have two points of contention about this book. The first is that although the book talks about two different cases and the four men accused of committing those murders, this is really a book about Ron Williamson. The other men are primarily mentioned in their relation to Williamson. Even his co-accused, Dennis Fritz, doesn’t get nearly as much depth. And after explaining about the second murder case, that case and its accused drop off the map and aren’t mentioned again until the author’s note at the end. That was extremely frustrating to me. I wanted to know what happened to them as well. My expectations would have been different if I had realized that this is more a biography of Williamson than an exploration of both murder cases. The other case is basically presented as further evidence of local corruption. It isn’t explained in satisfactory detail. And as I mentioned, it gets completely ignored for the second half of the book.
 
The other criticism I have for this book is Grisham’s lack of objectivity. I believe this was his first nonfiction book. And I can see how easy it would be to become emotionally invested in such a tragic case. Nevertheless, although at first glance Grisham seems to present everything factually, his bias becomes increasingly clear as the book goes on. He frequently uses declamatory and derogative adjectives against the law enforcement and legal representatives involved in the injustice while using consolatory and affirmative descriptions for the accused. Even when an event is known only by hearsay from both parties, the “bad guys” always get scoffing remarks while the “innocent” are validated with rock-solid certainty. So while I absolutely agree that justice was not served, this book should still be taken with a grain of salt and other sources should be consulted. Despite the in-depth research, The Innocent Man is absolutely not an unbiased account. But it does bring up important points about due process and the justice system in America, so I would still recommend it to True Crime fans.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Attention to Details: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Objectivity: 2 Stars

Presents the real-life case of Ron Williamson, a mentally ill former baseball player who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of a 21-year-old woman in his Oklahoma hometown.

murder and injustice in a small town

The innocent man

Jenna Pascale 

Hard to believe this was nonfiction! I’m a true crime junkie and this was the perfect read!!! Love!

Liam Harper

Fine. John's voice is slightly overpowering and gives many free passes to a very troubled but also obviously a flawed man. Otherwise a interesting look at how justice systems can go awry.

Kristen Claiborn

This is a well told story of the wrongful conviction of 2 innocent men. Grisham did nothing to disguise the contempt he felt towards the system that made those convictions possible. His disdain is felt throughout the book, which is the only reason it received 3 stars instead of 4.

Hussein Mahran

This is my first John Grisham reading, legal thriller is an interesting subjecy, however, this novel could easily emerge in half this size, too much off-context details and too much names got me a bit bored and a bit lost, though the case is hearth-breaking, but being a real story had some disadvantages such as not being able to know the final solution of the case, you get a load of promising leads from the first chapter, mysterious murder, wrongfully-spelled words written with catsup on walls, then another murder that's more bizzare and mysterious with corpse whereabouts missing, you expect a breath-taking thriller and you expect - obviously - to eventually discover the solution of all that mess, but you simply - and unfortunately - don't!, you just get a very obvious fact: Oklahoma is a terrible place to get into any trouble with police!
P.S. note to the art director or whoever put a bunch of photos at the exact middle of the book: you've spoiled the thriller by showing me photos of Ron and Dennis getting exonerated while I was still reading their terrible suffering in prison and death row !!!

Sachali Lambinet

Anjorin Molayo 

Gigi V

Belle

Jessica Deaner

In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. In 1982, a waitress names Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered. For reasons that were never clear, Ron and his friend, Dennis Fritz, were charged with her murder and Ron was sent to Death Row.

The Innocent Man Murder and Injustice in a Small Town

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