When there was no more Keene book to read, I switched to thicker paperbacks and fell in love with Erica Spindler, Dan Brown, Heather Graham, James Patterson, and the like. It's not hard to guess that I enjoy psychological thrillers and suspense/mystery. Don't get me wrong. I also read romance novels (depending on the story, of course) and I've read all Twilight books.
Papa tried to talk me into reading John Grisham when I was in high school. But at 14 years old, all those legal terms were still lost on me. I tried reading The Firm then, but I couldn't understand most of the words so I just gave up on it. Fast forward to nine years later: I decided to give Grisham another try. I started to read The Confession seven months ago, and I only finished reading it last week. In all fairness to Grisham, it's a really good read. I was just too busy with school that it took me that long to finish the book. Here's what I have to say about The Confession:
Note: There might be spoilers :)
The Confession is a story of a wrongfully accused man about to be executed for allegedly abducting, raping and murdering a high school cheerleader nine years ago. The real killer decides to show up and own up to his mistakes four days before the execution. Question is: will he make it in time to stop the execution and will they believe his confession?
For a more comprehensive summary of the book, click HERE.
The protagonist in this story is Robbie Flak, a defense attorney convinced of his client's innocence and hell-bent on getting him off the death row. Among all the characters in the story, I like Flak best not because he's the bida, but because of his interesting personality. He's a tough guy who enjoys filing lawsuits and suing everyone who crosses his path. He's actually funny because he makes a habit out of suing people, which is often pointless and just downright time-consuming. And because even though he's tough on the inside, he's just a big marshmallow when it comes to his client. Lawyers don't get too emotionally attached to their clients, but Flak makes an exception in this story.
The Confession is an interesting take on the death penalty. We don't have the death penalty in the country anymore, but it's still interesting to look at it from the perspective of a country or a State which implements it. We usually speak of the death penalty in terms of its purpose or its consequences. More often than not, the debate is about whether or not it should be implemented. It's nice to read about something that ponders on what happens if you implement the death penalty, but wrongfully execute an innocent man. It's not a new perspective, but it's a little unexplored compared to the others. Grisham deserves a round of applause for this one. Personally, he was able to make me question the Texas government's policies on punishment, without me even noticing. Cool.
I also love how, with so many characters, I didn't get lost in the story. Usually, I get confused when the author tries to add so many characters into the story, and the said characters turn out to be irrelevant to the plot. Grisham's work isn't like that. Even if there are hundreds of characters in his story, he knows how to shine the limelight on the bigger characters and dim the lights on the smaller ones - just so his readers don't get confused.
The ending wasn't all that spectacular, but everyone got their happily ever after. Like every good book, The Confession will give you that heartbreaking feeling that the story's over so you have to get back to the real world. And it'll make you want to grab another Grisham book. Haha.
So now, my nose is under The Client. And I'll let you know how that works out :)
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