Book Review: The Confession by John Grisham

I finished John Grisham’s The Confession in four straight days, and the first thing I did afterward was put up an Instagram story (the one that disappears after twenty-four hours) with the cover and the line: Reading this felt like an emotional gut punch. I found the story morally and ethically charged on the one hand, and riveting and unsettling on the other. Perhaps because it was uncomfortably close to reality.

The Confession is the heartbreaking story of Donté Drumm, a young Black football player from the small East Texas town of Sloan, who is wrongfully convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of Nicole Yarber, a popular high school White cheerleader—and sent to death row.

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Following a malicious witness testimony, Drew Kerber, a crooked detective with the Sloan Police Department, picks up Donté and, after a gruelling and intimidating interrogation filled with lies, extracts a false confession from him.

There is no evidence against Donté and the case is riddled with holes. Despite the fact that he later recants his forced confession and that the girl’s body is never found, Donté is tried before an all-White jury and convicted of a crime he did not commit.

But that’s not where Grisham’s novel begins. It actually starts nine years after Donté’s incarceration, when Travis Boyette—a serial rapist and registered sex offender out on parole in another case—is struck by a rare moment of conscience and confesses to the crime before Keith Schroeder, a Lutheran minister living hundreds of miles away in Topeka, Kansas. Travis wants to clear Donté’s name—‘He didn’t do anything wrong’—because he is dying of an inoperable brain tumour and wants to do one good thing before he takes his last breath.

With less than twenty-four hours to go before the execution, Keith, much against the advice of his wife and a lawyer friend, drives Travis all the way to Sloan in the dead of night to meet Donté’s lawyer, Robbie Flak, in a last-ditch effort to save his life.

Can a guilty man, especially a depraved, loathsome one at that, convince the police, judges, district attorneys, the media, politicians and a state governor—many of them indirectly complicit—that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

The Confession goes well beyond crime and punishment. It explores the profound impact of a wrongful conviction on families, society, and the criminal justice system in Texas, across America, and beyond. The story feels hauntingly close to real-life cases where those serving life sentences, awaiting execution, or perhaps already executed were later found innocent.

As always, Grisham’s writing is gripping, and the story unfolds at a brisk pace, overlooking no detail—whether of characters, events or the judicial process. I thought some of the lengthy descriptions and backstories could have been left out, but that’s the author’s prerogative, not to mention his trademark style. But, in doing so, Grisham explores sensitive issues such as the fairness—or the lack thereof—of the justice system, bigotry and racial bias, social prejudices and, above all, the death penalty.

The two main characters—Donté’s lawyer Robbie Flak (and his legal team) and minister Keith Schroeder—handle the crisis with a sense of urgency and compassion. Travis Boyette’s attempt at redemption isn’t quite convincing. I expected his character to be more chilling than it is, especially when he repeatedly tells Keith his wife is cute and that they must be having fun together.

In the end, The Confession is more than a legal thriller; it makes a strong case for empathy in law enforcement, due legal processes and criminal justice reforms. To err may be human, but to be fallible in matters of the death penalty is unthinkable. It made me think, as we all do from time to time: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Have you read The Confession? What other legal thrillers by John Grisham would you recommend?

Book Review: The Best Laid Plans by Sidney Sheldon

"Everybody's got a little skeleton buried somewhere. All you have to do is dig it up, and you'll be surprised how glad they'll be to help you with whatever you need."

Sidney Sheldon was one of the many authors I read back in college during the eighties. 

In those days, Sheldon—along with the likes of Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins, Lawrence Sanders, Jeffrey Archer, Dick Francis, Alistair MacLean, Arthur Hailey, Len Deighton, Ken Follett, Desmond Bagley, Wilbur Smith, and even Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace—was known as a bestselling author.

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I suppose they were known as bestselling authors not only because they were prolific, but also because their novels were often racy and regularly topped fiction charts, sold in the millions, and achieved mass-market success—I'd find their paperbacks everywhere, from bookstores to railway stations, and from footpath bookstalls to private circulating libraries. They had a certain global appeal. Many of their books were also adapted for the screen.

For the past forty years, I've been reading a handful of their novels every year, never quite sure if they hold up as well as they did back then. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

Most recently, I read The Best Laid Plans (1997) and quite enjoyed it; although, I found the ending rather abrupt and anticlimactic. It left me somewhat disappointed. There, I've given the game away already!

Still, The Best Laid Plans is a fast-paced political thriller that, for some reason, reminded me of Gore Vidal's 1967 novel Washington, D.C. Perhaps it's because both novels are about political morality, or more precisely, the lack of it. Power-hungry men willing to do whatever it takes to reach the highest office in the land.

Set in Lexington, Kentucky, The Best Laid Plans follows the lives of Leslie Stewart, a young, smart and ambitious PR executive, and Oliver Russell, a charismatic lawyer and down-on-his-luck political aspirant. Oliver hires Leslie's agency to revive his career and improve his chances of becoming governor of Kentucky. She is put in charge of his campaign, and predictably, the two fall in love and plan to marry.

That is, until Oliver dumps her just days before the wedding to marry the daughter of Senator Todd Davis, a political kingmaker whose influence and wealth help him win the Kentucky gubernatorial race. Davis then helps his son-in-law win the presidency as well, except for the fact that the senator has a secret agenda of his own—he intends to call the shots from the Oval Office.

Leslie is heartbroken, but not done with Oliver. She vows to destroy him. She marries a middle-aged business tycoon and philanthropist, originally from Kentucky but settled in Arizona. Leslie transforms her husband's local newspaper into a powerful media empire, and uses it to bring Oliver down.

Does she succeed? Well, you'll have to read the book, which, by the way, also has subplots involving mysterious deaths linked to the drug Ecstasy, corruption, personal vendetta and media spin, all of which trace back to Oliver's administration and cover-ups.

The Best Laid Plans is classic Sidney Sheldon with its formula of power, betrayal and revenge, as we saw in his best-known work The Other Side of Midnight. The writing is crisp, the chapters short, there is plenty of dialogue, and just the right amount of suspense. All of this makes it entertaining, though there's not much depth to the primary characters and the plot feels a bit rushed toward the end.

In sum, a decent page-turner for the weekend.

Book Review: A Wanted Man by Lee Child

"Some old guy once said the meaning of life is that it ends. Which was inescapably true. No one lives forever."

 

I know more about Jack Reacher from the Tom Cruise and Alan Ritchson movies and series than from Lee Child's novels, having read only Killing Floor, the first in the series.

In keeping with the trend, I was prompted to read the 17th instalment, A Wanted Man, after watching Season 3 on Prime, which is based on Child's seventh book, Persuader.

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Reacher's unintended exploits—or troubles, depending on how you see it—begin when he hitches a ride on a deserted highway to Nebraska with two men and a woman, ostensibly headed for Chicago. He's en route to Virginia to meet a girl. But once in the car, the highly decorated ex-military cop quickly senses something's off: the men appear friendly, making small talk, yet oddly evasive; the woman seems scared; and the route doesn't quite add up. His suspicion is confirmed when the woman, seated in the back, manages to warn him with a series of coded eye blinks through the rear-view mirror. Saying more would ruin the suspense for those who haven't read the book. 

Elsewhere, a Kansas sheriff is investigating the murder of a US trade attaché, a cover for a CIA station chief. The body, found at a nearby diner, is central to the plot of A Wanted Man.

Over the next forty-eight hours, Reacher finds himself in the middle of a dangerous situation that unfolds with each chapter. It involves conspiracy theories, an undercover operation, disappearing witnesses, and a potential terror plot with links to both domestic and Middle Eastern, likely Syrian, terrorists. Reacher teams up with Julia Sorenson, a sharp and initially reluctant FBI special agent from the Omaha field office, who's investigating the diplomat's murder. The plot spirals into a national security issue, pulling in FBI agents from other field offices, the State Department and the CIA.

A Wanted Man is a slow-building thriller that moves at a steady pace—a departure, I assume, from many of the other Reacher novels and their screen adaptations. Reacher spends considerable time thinking and analysing each situation before making his move. For example, he's admirably restrained as the two men drive for hours—across state lines, through Nebraska, Kansas and Ohio—without quite reaching their destination. He resists the urge to confront them, choosing instead to bide his time so he can get to the bottom of who they are and what they're actually up to. Here, Lee Child captures the tension of the seemingly endless road trip really well.

The ending is trademark Reacher, though. He storms in, guns blazing, for a high-stakes showdown inside an abandoned, blast-proof military installation—likened to a capsized battleship—in the middle of nowhere. It's so massive that the author details its secretive interior over several pages. I had trouble picturing it in my head.

I was so impressed with Lee Child's writing in Killing Floor—precise, with clipped sentences—that I promised myself I'd read more of his books. In A Wanted Man, I especially liked how Child effortlessly repeats certain words and phrases across consecutive sentences within the same paragraph. I don't recall coming across that style in anything else I've read. Hopefully, A Wanted Man will spur me to pick up more of his novels.