Structure

The book explores a pair of narrative lines in parallel. Chapters recounting the case of Walter McMillian alternate with chapters exploring a range of problems with the American legal system that go beyond those encountered by McMillian and the author. In other words, there is a real sense of back-and-forth about the book’s overall structure, with a detailed look at one particular legal situation being repeatedly juxtaposed with less detailed, but no less vivid, examinations of other, frequently similar (i.e. unjust) situations.

There is the strong feel that the McMillian storyline by itself is constructed very much along the lines of the traditional mystery / thriller / crime story. The description of the crime in question; the process by which someone is accused, tried, and convicted; the layers of truth that are at first concealed but then eventually revealed; the process of the lawyer’s investigation; the...