Review: A Few Minor Execution Problems with this Death Penalty Mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 15, 2013
This book was plotted well. An Ivy-league educated black journalist, Will Pruett, frames himself as the murderer of a corrupt policeman, with the hopes of overturning New York's death penalty. This was his boss's idea, but after much deliberation, he goes ahead with the plan. Things turn ugly quickly as he finds himself incarcerated on Riker's Island. He wants out - but now, his boss refuses to take his calls and he's facing a trial that has enough circumstantial evidence to where a conviction appears likely - and enough aggravating factors to warrant a sentence of death.It's an interesting premise, and the authors do a good job in taking the reader through the twists and turns of the police system. However, there were enough holes to drop my rating from five stars to only four stars.First of all, as other reviewers have mentioned, there seems to be an underlying racism in the book, beyond what is needed to make the plot work effectively. Although Pruett is a professional and educated man, his language becomes "ghetto-ized" quickly when in the company of his black billionaire friend, Louis, in a way that seems to stretch credibility. There are other examples throughout the book that added nothing to the plot but served to remind us that minorities do suffer discrimination. I don't condone racism in any manner, but I thought that the way that it was done detracted from the story.Secondly, there were quite a few typos, especially in the last quarter of the book.Finally, Pruett seemed too nave. It seems as if most people, if they were in a similar situation, would make a hundred copies of whatever supporting evidence existed to prove their innocence. They'd give a copy to their parents, their friends, put a copy in their safety deposit box, bury a copy in their yard, whatever. He seemed totally unprepared for prison life and not the sort of person who would have likely put himself in that position, even for professional means.Despite the shortcomings, it was an interesting book and I enjoyed reading it. With a little fine-tuning, it could have been a five-star book.If you mark this review as not being helpful, kindly leave a comment to let me know why. I try to make my reviews helpful to those interested in purchasing books and welcome the feedback.  I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for agreeing to provide a fair and honest review.Note: I've edited this review after the author sent me a copy of the Amazon version, which did not have the formatting issues that I wrote about in my initial review. Without those problems, I felt that this book deserved a four-star rating.