A Criminal Injustice

作者:Firstman, Richard/ Salpeter, Jay

页数:608

出版时间:2008-12

价格:CDN$ 33.00

isbn号码:9780345491213

具体描述

When he went to bed on the night of September 6, 1988, seventeen-year-old Marty Tankleff was a typical kid in the upscale Long Island community of Belle Terre. He was looking forward to starting his senior year at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School the next day. But instead, Marty woke in the morning to find his parents brutally bludgeoned, their throats slashed. His mother, Arlene, was dead. His father, Seymour, was barely alive and would die a month later. With remarkable self-possession, Marty called 911 to summon help. And when homicide detective James McCready arrived on the scene an hour later, Marty told him he believed he knew who was responsible: Jerry Steuerman, his father’s business partner. Steuerman owed Seymour more than half a million dollars, had recently threatened him, and had been the last to leave a high-stakes poker game at the Tankleffs’ home the night before. However, McCready inexplicably dismissed Steuerman as a suspect. Instead, he fastened on Marty as the prime suspect–indeed, his only one.

Before the day was out, the police announced that Marty had confessed to the crimes. But Marty insisted the confession was fabricated by the police. And a week later, Steuerman faked his own death and fled to California under an alias. Yet the police and prosecutors remained fixated on Marty–and two years later, he was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to fifty years in prison.

But Marty’s unbelievable odyssey was just beginning. With the support of his family, he set out to prove his innocence and gain his freedom. For ten years, disappointment followed disappointment as appeals to state and federal courts were denied. Still, Marty never gave up. He persuaded Jay Salpeter, a retired NYPD detective turned private eye, to look into his case. At first it was just another job for Salpeter. As he dug into the evidence, though, he began to see signs of gross ineptitude or worse: Leads ignored. Conflicts of interest swept under the rug. A shocking betrayal of public trust by Suffolk County law enforcement that went well beyond a simple miscarriage of justice. After Salpeter’s discoveries brought national media attention to the case, Marty’s conviction was finally vacated in 2007, and New York’s governor appointed a special prosecutor to reopen the twenty-year-old case. At the same time, the State Investigation Commission announced an inquiry into Suffolk County’s handling of what has come to be widely viewed as one of America’s most disturbing wrongful conviction cases.

As gripping as a Grisham novel, A Criminal Injustice is the story of an innocent man’s tenacious fight for freedom, an investigator’s dogged search for the truth. It is a searing indictment of justice in America.

用户评价

说实话，我一开始有些担心故事会陷入俗套的侦探或法律剧的框架，但这本书完全超出了我的预期。它摒弃了那种非黑即白的善恶二元对立，转而深入探索了“公正”这个概念本身的不确定性和相对性。我最欣赏的一点是，作者没有急于给出结论，而是将所有的证据、情感、和道德困境一股脑地抛给读者，让我们自己去充当陪审团。这种互动式的阅读体验非常迷人。角色的成长轨迹是缓慢而痛苦的，充满了反向的进步——有时他们看似在靠近真相，实则离自己内心真正的平静更远了。文字风格带着一种古典的庄重感，遣词造句考究，但又充满现代的锐利，形成了一种非常独特的阅读质感。我读到一些关于人际关系和信任瓦解的描写时，感同身受，甚至觉得作者是不是在我身边潜伏观察了很久。这本书无疑是近年来我读过的最具思考价值的文学作品之一，它值得被反复品味和讨论。

这部作品的结构之精巧，简直令人叹为观止。它就像一架设计精密的钟表，每一个齿轮（每一个章节和人物）都咬合得天衣无缝，驱动着整个故事朝着一个不可避免的终点前进。我很少看到有作家能将如此宏大的主题——比如体制的腐朽与个体的抗争——处理得如此细腻入微，聚焦于一个个小人物的命运。作者的叙事视角变化多端，有时候像上帝俯视众生，有时候又紧贴着某个角色的皮肤感受他的痛苦与希望，这种切换流畅得几乎让人察觉不到，但效果却极佳。它迫使我不断地重新评估我先前对某个角色的判断，每一次阅读都像是解锁了一个新的层次。文笔华丽而不失精准，尤其是在描绘心理冲突的场景时，那种内心世界的波澜壮阔，被作者用极其克制的笔触表现出来，留给读者的想象空间巨大。读完后，我忍不住上网去查阅了许多相关的社会学和法律概念，这本书成功地激发了我对现实世界进行更深入探究的欲望。

坦白说，这本书的阅读体验是充满挑战的，它不迎合轻松阅读的潮流。它要求读者全身心投入，去消化那些晦涩的法律条文背后的情感重量，去理解那些被体制化压抑的个体呼喊。我花了比平时更长的时间来阅读，很多段落需要反复回味，才能捕捉到作者隐藏在字里行间的讽刺和批判。这本书最成功的地方在于它营造了一种令人不安的真实感。它没有刻意去美化主角的形象，反而将其置于一个泥泞不堪的环境中，让他在挣扎中展现出人性的光辉与阴影。我尤其喜欢作者对环境的细致描摹，那种潮湿、阴冷的城市背景，完美地烘托了故事中那种挥之不去的绝望感。它像是一面冰冷的镜子，映照出社会体系的冰冷和人情世故的复杂。我推荐给所有对深度叙事感兴趣的读者，但要做好心理准备，这不是一本能让你心安理得合上的书。

读完这本书，我感觉自己的世界观仿佛被重新洗牌了一遍。它没有给我提供任何简单的答案，相反，它抛出了一连串尖锐的问题，直指我们习以为常的“正义”的本质。叙事手法非常新颖，作者巧妙地运用了非线性叙事，在不同的时间线和不同角色的视角之间自由切换，这种跳跃感非但没有造成混乱，反而像是在拼凑一块巨大的、残缺的马赛克，直到最后一刻才豁然开朗。我特别赞赏作者在处理道德模糊地带时的勇气。书中没有绝对的好人或坏人，每个人都在各自的逻辑体系内做出选择，即使是那些看似“错误”的选择，背后也隐藏着令人唏嘘的苦衷。这种对复杂人性的坦诚描绘，让我对现实中的许多事情都有了更深一层的理解。语言风格简洁有力，很少有冗余的形容词堆砌，但每一个动词的选择都精准到位，充满了力量感，读起来酣畅淋漓，像是在看一场高水平的辩论赛，逻辑严密，步步紧逼。

这部小说简直是场思想的过山车，情节的跌宕起伏让人完全沉浸其中，根本无法自拔。作者对人性的刻画入木三分，那些复杂的动机、挣扎的内心活动，都处理得极为细腻。我尤其欣赏作者构建的世界观，那种压抑却又充满微光的氛围，让人在阅读时仿佛能亲身感受到角色的每一次心跳加速。故事的节奏掌控得炉火纯青，时而紧张得令人窒息，时而又留出大片的留白供人反思。它不仅仅是一个关于审判和救赎的故事，更是一场对社会结构、法律漏洞以及个体在巨大权力面前的无力感的深刻探讨。我特别喜欢其中对几个配角的塑造，他们虽然不是叙事的核心，但每一个都血肉丰满，对主线剧情起到了至关重要的推动作用，甚至在某些时刻，他们的选择比主角更引人深思。整本书读完后，那种回味悠长的感觉非常强烈，我时不时地会停下来，对着书页陷入沉思，琢磨那些未曾明说的潜台词。作者的文字功底毋庸置疑，一些长句的排比和意象的运用，极具画面感和冲击力，读起来是一种享受。