The Confession, John Grisham’s latest and most fascinating book, is the story of a boy and a girl; he is a black football star and she a white cheerleader; in a small town in East Texas. She becomes missing following a night out with girl friends, and he is immediately arrested and charged with her murder following a 15 hour interrogation. Aided by a witness, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, a quick conviction is affirmed, and the young man is sent to death row. All of this is accomplished without a body and with only a coerced confession. Justice prevails, or has it?
Interesting characters: the mother of the young girl is a woman desperately seeking attention from the media and everyone else, one who can cry literally “at the drop of a hat”. The mother of the young man is a steadfast woman who has raised her children to be law abiding and devoted citizens of their school and town. The detective who arrests and interrogates the young man is more than a little zealous; the prosecutor is negligent in legal matters and the judge is corrupt. The defense attorney has been likened to “the mad hatter” for his constant battles with the system and then the Lutheran minister from Kansas finds himself on an unrequested quest.
Grisham’s books are always easy to read as they flow from sentence to sentence throughout the chapters. Yet the other portion of the book is concerned with mind-shattering statistics. And, one interesting fact, he is on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project in New York and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Innocence Project at the Mississippi School of Law. How much does this influence the book?
Bad News for the Library: The County has cut our budget by 50%, which means a definite decrease in the amount of books and magazines we can order each month. There is no money for the Children’s section, nor are there funds for DVDs. And so, we must depend upon donations from our patrons. And we thank you in advance, as we want to keep our Library as current as possible.
“When an old person dies, a Library burns down” – Karin Gillespie
