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For every innocent man sent to prison, there is a guilty one left on the outside. He doesn’t understand how the police and prosecutors got the wrong man, and he certainly doesn’t care. He just can’t believe his good luck. Time passes and he realizes that the mistake will not be corrected: the authorities believe in their case and are determined to get a conviction. He may even watch the trial of the person wrongly accused of his crime. He is relieved when the verdict is guilty. He laughs when the police and prosecutors congratulate themselves. He is content to allow an innocent person to go to prison, to serve hard time, even to be executed.
Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.
Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess.
But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 26, 2010 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780307702951
- File size: 418869 KB
- Duration: 14:32:38
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Languages
- English
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Levels
- Lexile® Measure: 610
- Text Difficulty: 2-3
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Reviews
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Grisham's latest legal thriller involves a lawyer and a preacher who are seeking evidence to exonerate a man on death row for a grisly murder. As the clock ticks, Travis Boyette suddenly appears, making everyone question who the real killer is. Scott Sowers differentiates the main characters--from the deliberate Boyette to the troubled prisoner. Sowers gives a believable Texas twang to many of the characters, including the frustrated defense lawyer and his cadre of opponents. He uses his clearest voice for the Reverend, who finds himself caught in an ethical quandary. This is Grisham at his best, winding a lawyerly tale about personal ethics, criminal justice, and religious values, and the narration is equally well crafted. M.B. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine -
November 1, 2010
Grisham's recent slump continues with another subpar effort whose plot and characters, none of whom are painted in shades of gray, aren't able to support an earnest protest against the death penalty. In 2007, almost on the eve of the execution of Donté Drumm, an African-American college football star, for the 1998 murder of a white cheerleader whose body was never found, Travis Boyette, a creepy multiple sex offender, confesses that he's guilty of the crime to Kansas minister Keith Schroeder. With Drumm's legal options dwindling fast and with the threat of civil unrest in his Texas hometown if the execution proceeds, Schroeder battles to convince Boyette to go public with the truth—and to persuade the condemned man's attorney that Boyette's story needs to be taken seriously. While the action progresses with a certain grim realism, Schroeder's superficial responses to the issues raised undercut the impact. As with The Appeal, the author's passionate views on serious flaws in the justice system don't translate well into fiction.
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