The Confession: A Novel

John Grisham

Oct 2010 · Vintage

About this ebook

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An innocent man is about to be executed. Only a guilty man can save him.
 
In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, Travis Boyette 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?

Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

Ratings and reviews

This book was terrible. John Grisham's coasting on his brand value and nothing else. The writing was sophomoric and he spends the entire book caricaturing Texans as death penalty-loving, racially backward, gun toters. His bludgeoning of Texans was tiring and, in the end, offensive to me not because I'm a Texan but because I'm an adult who enjoys good stories and good writing. Someone please stop this guy from writing anymore!

The clerk at the book store said that she had enjoyed this book more than the last several. Now I understand why. I found the portrayal of the Lutheran minister to be well done. It would have been easy to overplay his inner conflict, but Grisham struck a good balance. The concerns of his wife were well done as well. The bishop, on the other hand, was a cartoon character at best, and the nickname, the Monk, didn't help. The unrest in Sloan was portrayed well, as well as the resolution of that unrest. I might take a little exception to the way the white players joined the protest at the postponed football game. It set up all the football players at the funeral, and was only a little reminiscent of Grisham's earlier book, Bleachers. From the web, I understand Grisham is now working on a screenplay concerning some convicts from Norfolk who may be innocent. It is to be hoped that there are enough differences from this book and from The Innocent Man to avoid predictability. Speaking of predictability, I was not expecting Drumm to be executed. I figured there would be a reprieve to give time for him to be exonerated. I was wrong, and that heightened the emotional impact of the story. Well done.

Grisham's lecture/sermon on the political and social injustices of the death penalty lacks the characteristics of a decent novel; this genre accommodates readers seeking appropriate fiction. Socially conscious readers are aware of difference J.P. Miller. Cambridge, MA

About the author

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.
 
Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.
 
When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.
 
John lives on a farm in central Virginia.