Mark Gimenez - The Case against William

review written and read live on the bookshow by Brian Lowen on 2nd Oct 2014

The author is still being quoted as the new John Grisham and I would agree with that as I think Grisham’s Books have become a bit tired.

However, to really enjoy this book you have to be a fan of American football, as the author goes into great detail about the game, which spoilt it for me. Also MG makes no allowance for his English readers by including a lot of Americanisms in his story. Luckily the dictionary on my Kindle was able to explain them all.

Frank Tucker takes central spot in this story – he is a top class Lawyer working in Texas, but he only takes cases to defend people he thinks are innocent. So far he has won all his cases and is in high demand for his services.

We meet Frank’s son as a twelve year old rising star on the football field and we follow him until he becomes the best quarterback in the country.

Meanwhile Frank is successful in getting a footballer off a charge of rape and murder because he was sure he was innocent, but he was guilty and rapes and kills another girl. Frank is traumatised and considers he is responsible for the girl’s death. He hits the bottle and eventually becomes a drunkard, losing his job , his house and his wife.  He finishes up as a beach bum living in a

shack on the coast with three other drunks: an ex- con, an ex- coach and an ex- cop.

Then he gets the shattering news that his son, William has been arrested on a rape and murder charge. Even though Frank has lost his licence as a lawyer, he sets out to prove his son is innocent with the help of his three friends and a rookie lady lawyer who the court have appointed as William’s defence lawyer.

I did not enjoy this book as much as some of his previous books, ie The Governor’s Wife which was excellent, and also his first book The Colour of Law. That is because it focuses so much on the American football game, but I did enjoy the part of the book where the four ‘ex’s’ set out to prove William innocent. There are some good humorous touches here.

So I would recommend it to lovers of the American football game.