Crime and Violence in Latin America: Citizen Security, Democracy, and the State Book

I've enjoyed a few Grisham's in my day, and of course seen a few of the films... But this book is stunning, and it's his first non-fiction.

I myself practice criminal law, and of course if you asked me, I'd say there are bad cops out there, and bad prosecutors, and bad defense attorneys and bad judges, but I would not have imagined the devastating travesty that unfolds on these pages.

This is a story of small town justice going way south. It wasn't vigilante but it wasn't far off. They used the "system" over two decades to accomplish what a mob and noose once accomplished overnight.

The evil that even prosperous, educated people can do to one another is astonishing in this detailed, chilling account of a man who's constitutional rights are run roughshod over en route to a death penalty conviction for a murder he did not commit and for which no real evidence existed.

This is an informative, exciting, fast paced, real life chiller that everyone should read to understand how something unbelievable can and apparently does happen to "anyone."