The Confession by John Grisham. “I hadn’t read a Grisham book since his first few, but the Washington Post surprised me by giving the Confession a good review. Plus I had occasion to be exposed to the particulars of the ‘Norfolk Four’ case and how coerced confessions of the sort depicted in this novel can so thoroughly corrupt justice. The book was very suspenseful with a fairly well crafted story, and I finished it in a day. It was also better written than I remember Grisham being (should I read something he's written in the past fifteen years?). The negative was that I felt clubbed over the head with his caricatures. The novel is “advocacy fiction” (I think I’m making up that phrase, but you know what I mean) -- everyone is either angel or devil, depending on which side they are on. The innocent are perfect and pure and the pro-capital punishment characters are either: 1) corrupt and evil (anyone in an official role) or 2) ignorant, vengeful Texas rubes (all the rest). Shades of gray might have helped him Grisham deliver his message more effectively. I kept thinking of Tom Wolfe's book, I am Charlotte Simmons, where characters were so gratuitously cruel as to lack credibility. But again ... I read it in a day, so it obviously made a perfect beach read.”
