This is classic Grisham - the characters could have been lifted from any of his books. The crusading lawyer, the corrupt lawyer and cop. The deeply disturbing criminal. The plot that races along, eased by generalizations and only lightly sketched characters. The thing that wasn't classic Grisham for me was that it made me cry. Coming to close on the heels of reading Little Bee, a very different book, I again felt helpless at the end. Human beings lost in a system that because of fear has grown to regard itself as an end rather than a means.
I'm now in search of some happy reading.