The Guardians: A Novel

Grisham, John

ISBN 10: 0593400356 ISBN 13: 9780593400357

Verlag: Random House Audio, 2020

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A classic legal thriller—with a twist. • "A suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false incarceration, the death penalty and how the legal system shows prejudice.” —Associated Press

In the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues. There were no witnesses, no one with a motive. But the police soon came to suspect Quincy Miller, a young Black man who was once a client of Russo’s. 

Quincy was tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison, maintaining his innocence. But no one was listening. He had no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. In desperation, he writes a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small nonprofit run by Cullen Post, a lawyer who is also an Episcopal minister.

Guardian accepts only a few innocence cases at a time. Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated.

They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought.

Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Judge's List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.
 
Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.
 
When he's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.
 
John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

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     Duke Russell is not guilty of the unspeakable crimes for which he was convicted; nonetheless, he is scheduled to be executed for them in one hour and forty‑four minutes. As always during these dreadful nights, the clock seems to tick faster as the final hour approaches. I’ve suffered through two of these countdowns in other states. One went full cycle and my man uttered his final words. The other was waved off in a miracle finish.
     Tick away—it’s not going to happen, not tonight anyway. The folks who run Alabama may one day succeed in serving Duke his last meal before sticking a needle in his arm, but not tonight. He’s been on death row for only nine years. The average in this state is fifteen. Twenty is not unusual. There is an appeal bouncing around somewhere in the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, and when it lands on the desk of the right law clerk within the hour this execution will be stayed. Duke will return to the horrors of solitary confinement and live to die another day.
     He’s been my client for the past four years. His team includes a mammoth firm in Chicago, which has committed thousands of pro bono hours, and an anti-death penalty group out of Birmingham that is spread pretty thin. Four years ago, when I became convinced he was innocent, I signed on as the point man. Currently I have five cases, all wrongful convictions, at least in my opinion.
     I’ve watched one of my clients die. I still believe he was innocent. I just couldn’t prove it in time. One is enough.
     For the third time today, I enter Alabama’s death row and stop at the metal detector blocking the front door where two frowning guards are protecting their turf. One holds a clipboard and stares at me as if he’s forgotten my name since my last visit two hours ago.
     “Post, Cullen Post,” I say to the dunce. “For Duke Russell.”
     He scans his clipboard as if it holds vital information, finds what he wants, and nods to a plastic basket on a short conveyor belt. In it, I place my briefcase and cell phone, same as before.
     “Watch and belt?” I ask like a real smart‑ass.
     “No,” he grunts with an effort. I step through the detector, get cleared, and once again an innocence lawyer manages to properly enter death row without weaponry. I grab my briefcase and cell phone and follow the other guard down a sterile hallway to a wall of bars. He nods, switches click and clang, the bars slide open, and we hike down another hallway, trudging deeper into this miserable building. Around a corner, some men are waiting outside a windowless steel door. Four are in uniform, two in suits. One of the latter is the warden.
     He looks gravely at me and steps over. “Got a minute?”
     “Not many,” I reply. We move away from the group for a private chat. He’s not a bad guy, just doing his job, which he’s new at and thus he’s never pulled off an execution. He’s also the enemy, and whatever he wants he will not get from me.
     We huddle up like pals and he whispers, “What’s it look like?”
     I glance around as if to evaluate the situation and say, “Gee, I don’t know. Looks like an execution to me.”
     “Come on, Post. Our lawyers are saying it’s a go.”
     “Your lawyers are idiots. We’ve already had this conversation.”
     “Come on, Post. What are the odds right now?”
     “Fifty‑fifty,” I say, lying.
     This puzzles him and he’s not sure how to respond. “I’d like to see my client,” I say.
     “Sure,” he says louder as if frustrated. He can’t be viewed as cooperating with me, so he storms off. The guards step back as one of them opens the door.
     Inside the Death Room, Duke is lying on a cot with his eyes closed. For the festivities, the rules allow him a small color television so he can watch whatever he wants. It’s on mute with cable news giddy over wildfires out west. His countdown is not a big story on the national front.
     At execution time, every death state has its own silly rituals, all designed to create as much drama as possible. Here, they allow full‑contact visits with close family members in a large visitation room. At 10:00 p.m., they move the condemned man to the Death Room, which is next door to the Death Chamber where he’ll be killed. A chaplain and a lawyer are permitted to sit with him, but no one else. His last meal is served around 10:30, and he can order whatever he wants, except for alcohol.
     “How you doing?” I ask as he sits up and smiles.
     “Never felt better. Any news?”
     “Not yet, but I’m still optimistic. We should hear something soon.”
     Duke is thirty‑eight and white, and before getting arrested for rape and murder his criminal record consisted of two DUIs and a bunch of speeding tickets. No violence whatsoever. He was a party boy and hell‑raiser in his younger days, but after nine years in solitary he has settled down considerably. My job is to set him free, which, at the moment, seems like a crazy dream.
     I take the remote and change channels to one from Birmingham, but I leave it on mute.
     “You seem awfully confident,” he says.
     “I can afford to. I’m not getting the needle.”
     “You’re a funny man, Post.”
     “Relax, Duke.”
     “Relax?” He swings his feet to the floor and smiles again. He does indeed look rather relaxed, given the circumstances. He laughs and says, “Do you remember Lucky Skelton?”
     “No.”
     “They finally got him, about five years ago, but not before serving him three last meals. Three times he walked the gangplank before getting the shove. Sausage pizza and a cherry Coke.”
     “And what did you order?”
     “Steak and fries, with a six‑pack of beer.”
     “I wouldn’t count on the beer.”
     “Are you gonna get me outta here, Post?”
     “Not tonight, but I’m working on it.”
     “If I get out I’m going straight to a bar and drinking cold beer until I pass out.”
     “I’ll go with you. Here’s the Governor.” He appears on‑screen and I hit the volume.
     He’s standing in front of a bank of microphones with camera lights glaring at him. Dark suit, paisley tie, white shirt, every tinted hair gelled with precision. A walking campaign ad. Sufficiently burdened, he says, “I have thoroughly reviewed Mr. Russell’s case and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Audio
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593400356
• ISBN 13: 9780593400357
• Einband: Audio CD
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland