A propulsive legal drama with a unique case, an unforgettable client, and a flawed but hardworking attorney.
A firsthand, true-life account of an attorney and a client both down on their luck and facing long odds for success.
In the early autumn of 1996, former Georgia state representative McCracken Poston Jr. was putting the finishing touches on a losing congressional election bid. Nearly a year later, Ringgold, a small town in the same county, was upended by a strange murder case. Alvin Ridley, a reclusive and odd-seeming TV repairman, placed a call to local police from a payphone, telling authorities he thought his wife Virginia had “passed out.” When they asked if she was breathing, Alvin said no, and it wasn’t long before the law began to suspect foul play. In the period between his wife’s death and his eventual arrest, Alvin ran into and then began badgering Poston, so much so that the failed politician—who had restarted his law practice upon leaving the state legislature for civilian life—agreed to represent Alvin, should it come to that, if Alvin promised to stop calling in the middle of the night and waking up Poston and his new wife, Alison. Once Alvin was arrested, the pair set about proving his innocence—not only of her murder but also of the charge that, prior to Virginia’s death, Alvin had imprisoned her for years. Defending Alvin was an uphill battle from the start for Poston, who had to routinely deal with outbursts and confusing behavior from his client, who once claimed—truthfully, it turns out—that he missed a court date because of a “giant spider bite.” Poston remained a loyal advocate for Ridley, but even he sometimes could not help but lose patience and lash out; it is in these moments between attorney and client that readers connect with the humanity of each man. At one point, Poston lost his cool and berated Ridley for his nonexistent hygiene and dirty clothes, insisting that he shower and change. Ridley arrived the next day “literally, wearing the same clothes again from yesterday. I was almost happy that he’d ignored my outburst about his hygiene. I still felt bad about it.” As the trial began to take shape after a critical continuance, Poston was finally allowed into Ridley’s home, where he began to realize that he—and the town writ-large—may have misunderstood the person they called the “Zenith Man.”
Readers will sympathize with Poston’s eroding patience and feel endeared to him for regretting his harsh treatment of his client; they will likely develop a begrudging respect for Ridley for not conforming to someone else’s conventions. By turns a humorous character study and a searing examination of the blind spots in our justice system, Poston’s work is an emotionally affecting page-turner sure to be loved by fans of true crime and courtroom procedurals. While many works centered on trials run the risk of becoming either too forensic and emotionless or too riddled with bias and attachment, Poston’s book manages to maintain an effective balance. Readers will both identify with and trust this narrator and are sure to enjoy riding alongside him through what must have been the strangest case of his career.
A propulsive legal drama with a unique case, an unforgettable client, and a flawed but hardworking attorney.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780806542799
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Citadel
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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