15 minutes
IN The Guardians, John Grisham offers readers an insight into America’s dysfunctional legal system. It also shows the depth of corruption in the system, which has loopholes that can be manipulated by those in power to make victims of those it incarcerates.
Over two decades before the story begins, in the small Florida town of Seabrook, a young white lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead while working alone at his desk late one night. With no witnesses, it initially appeared a crime without a motive.
Nevertheless, the police arrested Quincy Miller, a young black man, for the murder.
As a client of Russo’s, Miller was angry with his lawyer for the mishandling of his divorce. According to the police, Miller used a shotgun to kill Russo, and he was linked to the crime by a blood-spattered flashlight found at the scene.
Conveniently for the police, all the evidence vanished in a fire while in storage. At the same time, a young policeman – also black – who may have had some knowledge of what’s happened to the evidence, was ambushed and murdered.
The police chief who had taken personal charge of the case, was himself suspected of being involved in the drug trade.
Quincy was tried, convicted, and sentenced for life. For 22 years, he languished in prison, but maintaining his innocence. Unfortunately, he had no lawyer, and no-one to advocate for him on the outside.
In desperation, he writes to Guardian Ministries, a small non-profit in Savannah Georgia which is run on a shoestring budget with just three employees.
Among them is Cullen Post, a lawyer who also happens to be an Episcopal minister. The team is helped by Frankie, also black, who, having been exonerated after 14 years in prison, is now a millionaire as a result of his legal compensation.
With Miller, Post gets more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Russo, and they do not want Miller exonerated. The real reason Russo was killed only emerges in a final twist.
It is not a pretty story – with greed and lust at its core. An illuminating read.
