The Confession by John Grisham

Synopsis at www.goodreads.com

An innocent man is about to be executed.

Only a guilty man can save him.

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

My Comments:

Bought this from BookXcess last week. I can say that I am some sort of a fan of John Grisham despite some of his recent books were a miss for me. 

Anyway, just finished reading this book yesterday. Not bad. I like it although the story seems just barely touching the surface. Did not really whet my appetite. 


Plot and pace of the book was fast enough. However, there was a lacking of "feel" when I was reading it. I did not get the "rush" when reading it. 


Anyway, it's still a good read for those who likes story about law and the chase against time.


I wonder why he wrote this book. From what I see it seems that this book is written to advocate against the law of Death Penalty. It centered around how the Death Penalty could be missed handled and that innocent man could be executed. For this I applause his efforts. 


I am no angel if you are thinking, "oh ..that's good. She is against Death Penalty". Nope, for me, it's better for the criminal to rot in behind bars rather than adding sin of killing to our life. We have enough burdens on our shoulders as it is. 

Yes, "life time" does not really mean the criminal will be jailed till the day he die but maybe the juries or judge could make it a few life time imprisonment that runs consecutively instead of concurrently?

Anyway, good job to John Grishan.