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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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