#BookReview: Guilty Until Innocent by Robert Whitlow

More Southern Fiction Than Legal Thriller. Admittedly it has been several years since I last picked up a book by Whitlow, but back in the day this author was essentially a Christian form of John Grisham – he’s going to give you tight, exciting legal thrillers of some form (via inside or outside the courtroom itself), but a Christian version of it where people more openly pray and talk about “God stuff” and such.

This book… keeps all the “God stuff” *in spades* (seriously, if you’re openly hostile to anything Christian or even just not at all interested in anything Christian… don’t bother reading this book, you’re not going to like it) but ditches the legal thriller aspects in favor of a more Boo Walker or Nicholas Sparks or Pat Conroy ish Southern fiction tale.

The story is long, some might argue too long, drawn out, yet ultimately satisfying for what it actually is and the multiple sub plots it is running concurrently. There is a *touch* of action near the end, but it really is more of a “slight rise on a kiddie coaster” level than anything particularly suspenseful – more suspenseful than anything else in this tale, but that only serves to highlight just how little actual danger there seems to be at any point here.

Still a great tale for what it actually is, just in no way any form of thriller or suspense.

Very much recommended.

This review of Guilty Until Innocent by Robert Whitlow was originally written on January 16, 2025.

#BookReview: Pleading Out by Dan Canon

Scant Documentation Makes A Weaker Case. First, I generally agree with the author’s overall points here, even while disagreeing with his more leftist slants on a lot of his recommendations – unionizing prison inmates among them. But even in cases such as here where I generally agree, I have a history of judging a book based on the actual merits of the actual arguments and verifications therein, and this book simply doesn’t hold up. Its Bibliography (at least in the Advance Review Copy form) is barely 15% of the text, which is about half the norm and maybe 1/3 the length of the Bibliography of truly well documented treatises. And while the author’s career experience as a litigating attorney can account for some of it, even here – provide at least some documentation for your claims, so that those who *don’t* have that background can verify them. But the lack of documentation is the primary argument here for overall lack of persuasiveness. Furthermore, another star was deducted for ultimately not satisfying the overall premise as laid out in the description – which admittedly is a combined effort of both author and publisher, and not always in the author’s hands. Still, the description here proposes that the book argues that plea bargaining “produces a massive underclass of people who are restricted from voting, working, and otherwise participating in society”… and while Canon occassionally makes reference to this, he never really establishes that particular line of reasoning here. Indeed, for *that* side of the criminal justice system there really are a few other vastly superior texts that have released over the last few years. Instead, Canon more takes these as a given – again, with little documentation – and argues – with little documentation – that plea bargaining is the chief cause of this. As stated at the beginning of this review, while I *generally* agree with this line of reasoning, I simply expect a better documented (and ultimately more evenly argued) presentation of this, particularly in a book released to a wide audience, including those who may be predisposed to *not* agreeing with the argument for any number of reasons. Still, ultimately a worthy read that at least adds yet another voice to the conversation, and for that reason it is very much recommended.

This review of Pleading Out by Dan Canon was originally written on February 28, 2022.

#BookReview: Love Lockdown by Elizabeth Greenwood

Making The Case For A More Systematic Examination Of Its Topic. This book does a *tremendous* job in looking at as many facets of love and relationships involving the United States’ millions – literally -of prisoners via multi-year case studies of five particular couples. And therein also lies its chief weakness – while the original research for the case studies themselves was conducted directly by the author, the author states many facts beyond the people she is directly interviewing… and then the text doesn’t provide any form of bibliography to back up these (sometimes alarming, shocking, or even dubious) claims. But even with this weakness noted, the text’s strengths via its case studies are truly remarkable, and show the pressing need for a more systematic – and documented – examination of this particular topic. This is a book that will shock you. It will pull at your heart strings. It will make you cheer and cry and scream out at the people involved “WTF ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!”. And in these regards, it truly is a phenomenal book. Very much recommended.

This review of Love Lockdown by Elizabeth Greenwood was originally written on June 22, 2021.