False Convictions [Mass Market Paperback]

In "False Convictions," Tim Green starts the action in autumn of 1989, when Dwayne Hubbard, a black man carrying a knife whose DNA matches the blood type of the victim, is beat up by thugs and then detained by police for the brutal murder of Cassandra Thornton, a popular blonde bombshell who went to the same school as him. Fast forward twenty years later, and gorgeous attorney Casey Jordan, who runs a legal clinic for underprivileged women, is contacted by billionaire Robert Graham to participate in his charity program aimed at freeing wrongfully convicted people, called Project Freedom, in exchange for annually donating one million dollars for her clinic.

The first case Robert wants Casey to look into is that of Dwayne Hubbard, suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his case. At the time of Hubbard's conviction, the son of D.A. Rivers, Nelson Rivers, was Cassandra's boyfriend. After further research into the matter, Casey begins to suspect that Rivers put Hubbard in jail to cover up the crime of her son. Graham partners Casey with Marty Barrone, a lawyer engaged to the judge's daughter, and introduces her to Jake Carlson, a prominent TV reporter.

Casey visits Dwayne in jail, who affirms his innocence. Casey soon realizes that the DNA on Dwayne's knife, aside the fact that it happened to match the victim's blood type, was never fully tested against the DNA of the victim. Casey travels to the warehouse where evidence is kept, but officers tell her they got rid of the knife due to age of the case. Casey's suspicion is aroused when she notices that the boxes of evidence from older cases are still present.

Determined to do the DNA test, Casey learns that right before the murder, Cassandra was raped and swabs were taken from her to be stored at the hospital. There, Cassandra encounters another obstacle as the hospital's lawyer tells her an authorization from the judge is needed, before she can see the swabs. Soon, Casey's main quest becomes not only convincing the judge to re-open the case, but getting Nelson River's DNA sample to compare against the victim's.

At first, Green's plot appears deceptively easy. However, the action gets increasingly more complicated as Casey realizes that her involvement in Dwayne's case is really a part of a bigger story and that some characters around her have ulterior motives. Overall, this was an entertaining mystery. The characters are well-developed, and Green frequently keeps you guessing as to where he's going with the story. The book itself is pretty short, so it was a quick read. Recommended for the mystery lovers out there.

The author of this book, Tim Green, is a practicing attorney and former NFL defensive end living in New York. That sounds like an interesting combination. Since he has also written more than a dozen novels, when I was offered the opportunity to review this book, I jumped at the chance.

The novel begins with a deceptively simple plot. Twenty years ago, a black man was convicted of murdering a pretty white college student and now a well-known attorney is attempting to prove him innocent. Casey Jordan is an ambitious lawyer who runs a legal clinic for underprivileged women. She is contacted by billionaire philanthropist Robert Graham to participate in his charity program that attempts to free wrongfully convicted people, called Project Freedom. In exchange for her help, Graham agrees to donate $1,000,000 to her clinic.

The case Graham wants Jordan to look into is that of Dwayne Hubbard who vehemently claims his innocence. In her interview with Hubbard, Hubbard describes the victim this way:

"The dead girl?" Hubbard asked, raising an eyebrow. "I knew who she was. Everyone did. The queen bee of the East Sider's. Country club kids. Not that her family belonged -- the dad flipped burgers at Mickey D's. You wanted to wipe that smile off her face and watch her freckles turned purple? All you had to do was sing the big Mac song: 'Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.' Rich boys didn't care about that, though. She was VIP. Tall and blonde and built for speed. Dude had to have a fat roll of cash and a sweet ride before he even thought about running with her."

Hubbard claims that in addition to him being innocent, he was also attacked by some white man during the time of the crime and stabbed one of them with a knife. Later analysis of the DNA on Hubbard's knife was found to match the victim's blood type. However, the blood was never fully tested against the DNA of the victim, and when Casey Jordan gets involved in the case and goes to the warehouse where evidence is kept, Hubbard's file is mysteriously missing.

Once Jordan is finally able to secure the evidence she needs, it appears that nearly everyone involved in this case has something to hide. The more that she investigates this case, the more cover ups Jordan encounters. She is soon teamed up with a TV news journalist, Jake Carlson, who wants to interview Robert Graham for an article about the Freedom Project. She also receives help from Marty Barrone, an inexperienced local lawyer who helps her with the local politics.

What I liked about this book was that there were plenty of plot twists. What started out as a straightforward attempt to free a wrongly convicted prisoner quickly turns into a labyrinth of lies and deceit. Although I never quite connected with the lead characters in the book, the plot surprises make this a quick and entertaining read.

A charity organization known as the Freedom Project, which is dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted prisoners and is run by billionaire and philanthropist Robert Graham, hires defense attorney Casey Jordan to revive the case of Dwayne Hubbard. A black man convicted of brutally murdering and raping a college student 20 years ago. Casey believes this will be an open and shut case since she has DNA evidence that proves his innocence. Everything is not as it seems.
I always enjoy and get a lot of satisfaction from Tim Green's novels. Suffice it to say this one didn't hit the big mark for me. It was a good story overall and provided plenty of suspense and mystery but somehow the ending didn't sit right with me. I'm not going to spoil it but I think one of the villians deserved a harsher punishment than the other.

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