In general, I am a fan of all types of legal thrillers. I like Grisham, Turow, Baldacchi, Tanenbaum, and most any others I have read. I am also interested in anything having to do with the death penalty. So, I was excited to read this one. The basic plot is standard for all death row stories -- innocent man is convicted because of police tunnel vision/evidence manipulation. Smart young lawyer, young honest cop or other naive fresh face uncovers the truth and saves the inmate (or in the stronger stories, uncovers the truth and the client is executed nonetheless). Bernhardt set his story up well -- he paints the picture of a horrific crime, and he shows us the trial testimony of the prosecution's star witness. But, after that, it was all downhill. Bernhardt's characters were too stereotypical, the investigation body count way too high, and his random lashing out at fast-food corporations too out in left field. The story was overly-complex in unnecessary ways, and far too straight-forward in others. For fiction involving the death penalty, I would instead recommend Stephen King's The Green Mile and Richard North Patterson's Conviction. For true crime involving the death penalty, nothing beats Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I have also started Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, as well as John Grisham's The Innocent Man. Both are quite promising so far, and bound to tell a much better story and make a much stronger and more honest statement about the death penalty than this one. For those more inclined to watch movies -- I recommend "Dead Man Walking" (with Sean Penn) and "The Life of David Gale"(with Kevin Spacey).
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Death Row - William Bernhardt
In general, I am a fan of all types of legal thrillers. I like Grisham, Turow, Baldacchi, Tanenbaum, and most any others I have read. I am also interested in anything having to do with the death penalty. So, I was excited to read this one. The basic plot is standard for all death row stories -- innocent man is convicted because of police tunnel vision/evidence manipulation. Smart young lawyer, young honest cop or other naive fresh face uncovers the truth and saves the inmate (or in the stronger stories, uncovers the truth and the client is executed nonetheless). Bernhardt set his story up well -- he paints the picture of a horrific crime, and he shows us the trial testimony of the prosecution's star witness. But, after that, it was all downhill. Bernhardt's characters were too stereotypical, the investigation body count way too high, and his random lashing out at fast-food corporations too out in left field. The story was overly-complex in unnecessary ways, and far too straight-forward in others. For fiction involving the death penalty, I would instead recommend Stephen King's The Green Mile and Richard North Patterson's Conviction. For true crime involving the death penalty, nothing beats Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I have also started Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, as well as John Grisham's The Innocent Man. Both are quite promising so far, and bound to tell a much better story and make a much stronger and more honest statement about the death penalty than this one. For those more inclined to watch movies -- I recommend "Dead Man Walking" (with Sean Penn) and "The Life of David Gale"(with Kevin Spacey).
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