The Innocent Man by John Grisham (Hardcover, 2006)

When John Grisham read the obituary of Ronald Williamson in early 2004, he realized he had come across a story even more riveting than those he had turned into 18 global bestsellers with worldwide sales of 200 million copies. It was a story of failed dreams, madness, rape and murder, a botched trial, a wrongful death sentence and a twelve-year fight to win justice. Ronald Williamson was a local hero in his home town of Ada, Oklahoma. A fabulously talented baseball player, he excelled at college and was set to become a national sports star when injury wrecked his career. Mental illness and alcoholism followed his return to Ada, a burned-out shell of a man. While in prison serving a short sentence for a petty felony, a fellow prisoner alleged that he had heard Williamson confess to the unsolved rape and murder of a local bar girl. Denied drugs for his psychiatric problems, given a blind attorney who had never defended a criminal case, Williamson stood no chance and was sentenced to dea.