Framed

“Grisham does a service by elevating Jim McCloskey, who can inspire all of us to use our privilege in the service of those ensnared in the moral scandal we call a criminal justice system… . Years before the Innocence Project began showing Americans that their prisons hold countless people who have committed no crime, he was quietly gumshoeing his way through hard, obscure cases. Without him, it’s hard to imagine Serial or Making a Murderer or the rest of our current wave of prosecution-skeptical nonfiction.”—The New York Times “Framed is Grisham’s second foray into nonfiction and his storytelling skills are well-displayed here. McCloskey is founder of Centurion Ministries, which works to free the wrongly convicted… . [The book is] clinical, carefully assembling the stories of those wrongly imprisoned.”—Associated Press “The flaws and lethal errors that condemn innocent people in the American legal system have caused too many for too long to needlessly suffer. Jim McCloskey and John Grisham are towering figures in law and literature shining an urgent, compelling, and critically important light on the heartbreaking wrongful convictions that compromise our legal system and remain a national tragedy.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy“Framed should come with a warning label: Be prepared never to look at the justice system the same way again. In this collection of ten shocking wrongful-conviction cases, each stranger than fiction, you’ll come away outraged by how easily so many prosecutions can and do run off the rails: investigative tunnel vision, coached witnesses, compromised jailhouse snitches, junk science, cultural bias, crooked prosecutors, and even biased judges. How grateful we all should be to John Grisham and Jim McCloskey—for raising the alarm and crusading for true justice.”—Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road“In this essential collaboration, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey vividly demonstrate the need to run just as fast, if not faster, to exonerate the innocent as to punish the guilty. In ten shocking true stories, they not only convey the devastating impact of wrongful convictions on each affected person but also sound the alarm for all of us—there but for the grace of God, go I. These are remarkable stories of injustice that need to be told. And retold.”—Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney and author of Doing Justice“These ten stories—bitter, gritty, and heartbreaking—will astound you, will inspire you, will bring your blood up to a roiling boil. Here are crimes of egregious malfeasance, perpetrated by cops, prosecutors, and jurists, that often seem more sinister than the original crimes these authorities were supposed to impartially resolve. Grisham and McCloskey, writing in crisp, propulsive prose, remind us how much hard and thoughtful work we still have to do to make America’s legal system equitable, transparent, and fair.”—Hampton Sides, author of The Wide Wide Sea“The truth eventually came out in these cases, but that does little to lessen the impact of this sobering look at what happens when we turn a blind eye to injustice. A powerful and infuriating must-read about ineptitude and injustice in America’s legal system.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

John Grisham is the author of fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include Camino Ghosts, The Exchange: After the Firm, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.