True Crime [Hardcover]

Andrew Klavan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 1998

In the heat of the city, a man is out of time: speeding in a beat-up Ford Tempo, blasting easy-listening music.  Reporter Steve Everett drinks too much, makes love to his boss's wife, and has just stumbled upon a shocking truth: a convicted killer is about to be executed for a crime he didn't commit.

In the cold confines of Death Row, Frank Beachum is also out of time.  Ready to say good-bye to the wife and child he loves and hello to the God he still believes in, Beachum knows he did not kill a convenience store clerk six years ago.  But in a few hours--if Steve Everett can't find the evidence to stop it--a needle is going to pierce Frank Beachum's skin.

The killing machine is primed.  The executioner is waiting.  And so is the priest.  Now the clock is ticking down and the race is on--between the reporter and his demons, between the system and its lethal flaws, between the last innocent man and society's ultimate crime .  .  .  .


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

True Crime is an edge-of-the-seat suspense novel that graphically portrays the final moments leading up to a condemned killer's appointment with the executioner. The plot is familiar but convincing: An inmate, Frank Beachum, denies any involvement in the murder of a young pregnant woman. His only chance for survival lies in the hands of a reporter, Steven Everett. From the very first page, however, veteran suspense writer Andrew Klavan does everything possible to make this journalist unlikable--he drinks too much, he's committed adultery. In fact, the incarcerated Beachum, who stands accused of a hideous crime, comes across as a much more decent person than Everett.

Foes of capital punishment will find in True Crime another buttress to the oft-expressed argument that state-sanctioned murder is not always just, that some police investigations are sloppy even when they're not politically tinged or racially motivated, and that exonerating evidence is often overlooked. Here such evidence is so glaringly overlooked that it's possible for a somewhat drunken reporter with plenty of other things on his mind (a wife who's about to leave him and a boss who's just discovered that Everett is cuckolding him) to spot the inconsistencies. He follows a hunch, discovers the identity of the real killer, and tries to clear Beachum's name as the minutes tick away. The relentless pace and Klavan's crisp, taut writing make the suspension of disbelief possible, and no doubt Clint Eastwood, who stars in the movie version, will make Steven Everett a more likely and likable hero. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Though this is only Klavan's fourth novel under his own name (he received two Edgar Awards for pseudonymous mysteries), his stylistic range and thoroughly compelling plots have earned him a loyal readership?an audience that should be broadened with this gripping tale. Here Klavan puts an intensely human, often intriguingly quirky face on a familiar plot device: the race to save a convicted killer on death row. When a St. Louis News staffer crashes her car hours before her scheduled interview with Frank Beachum (the interview itself to take place just eight hours before Beachum's execution), reporter Steve Everett is handed the assignment. Everett, 35 (and possessing "wicked, sharply angled brows and a wicked, sharply angled smile"), is already under pressure: though married, he has been shtupping the boss's wife, which creates no little tension at work and at home. Furthermore, he comes to believe that Beachum is innocent, and both personal ethics and career opportunism propel him to pursue his theory. To this end, Klavan gives us the photo finish to end all photo finishes: readers may be gasping for breath by the time Beachum's fate is decided. Even before that, however, the author's vivid characterizations and dramatic prose?packed with tension, black humor and wry observations on the human condition?command attention. Alternating chapters (their style changing as deftly as their settings) present a harrowing portrait of a killer's final hours along with perceptively observed personal and professional crises of an oddly likable schlemiel. 250,000 first printing; major ad/promo; film rights to 20th Century-Fox; simultaneous Random House audio.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (October 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 051726823X
• ISBN-13: 978-0517268230
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,100,549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Klavan has been nominated for the Mystery Writer of America's Edgar award five times and won twice. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Don't Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, and Empire of Lies. He is currently writing a series of thrillers for young adults called The Homelanders. The first two novels in the series are The Last Thing I Remember and The Long Way Home. Klavan is a contributing editor to City Journal and his essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other places. His satiric video commentaries can be seen on PJTV.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wrenching death-watch thriller, November 14, 2003

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: True Crime: The Novel (Paperback)

Klavan, known for well-written, gritty, edge-of-your-seat crime thrillers, takes these elements to literary heights with "True Crime."

The story is not new. With only 18 hours to go before a convicted murderer is scheduled to die, a newspaper reporter, narrator Steve Everett, finds reason to believe the man is innocent. His minute-by-minute account alternates with gut-wrenching death-watch scenes from the convict's cell.

Everett is yanked out of his editor's wife's bed for this assignment - by the editor himself, who already has plenty of reason to despise cocky, cynical, philandering Everett. This time Everett knows that even his old friend and boss, Alan Mann, who shares his view that "issues are what we make up to give us an excuse to run good stories" - even Mann can't save his job this time.

Everett needs a good story. But the "human interest" interview about the condemned man's "feelings" isn't it. Digging into the background, getting the details of the convenience store-clerk's murder, he uncovers some minor unanswered questions, which lead to more questions.

Juggling the vengeful editor and his own fed-up, straight-laced wife, who's sure to leave him once this latest infidelity is out, it dawns on Everett that proving Beachum innocent could be the single answer to all his immediate problems.

Meanwhile Beachum is saying his last farewells to his wife and daughter. A devout Christian, he is determined to act calm, resigned and unafraid. "But it did make him terribly lonely. To have her here, to hold her, to want to tell her everything that was in his heart - and to jolly her along like this instead."

The tension mounts, page by page. Everett's discoveries are tantalizingly inconclusive, every leap forward is confronted by an obstruction, a setback, a reasonable explanation. And the scenes in Beachum's stark cell grow more and more painful to endure as the man wrestles with his inner fears, the shattered hopes of a life, his anguish, impatience and dread.

Everett is not a nice guy. But the reader remains aware that this is his book, the powerful and disturbing insight of the Beachum chapters as well as the wise-cracking, cynical chase. And while we identify with Beachum's awful plight, we turn away from his unbearable pain, then turn the page to see what happens next.

Klavan has written a rivetting story which presents a devastating portrait of the real cruelties of capital punishment, not that it will change any minds.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Page-turner" is an understatement!, June 29, 2005

By 

David A. Berman "bermbits" (The Granite State) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: True Crime: The Novel (Paperback)

*NO SPOILERS*

This was the first book in a long time in which I wanted desperately to jump ahead to read the last few pages to see what happens. As it was, I whipped through the last twenty or thirty pages, skimming and skipping details to get to the end (as soon as I finished, I did go back and re-read more carefully to fill in details).

Interestingly, I didn't at all like the main character - he was obnoxious - a definite anti-hero. I did feel deeply for the condemned man and his family - having to leave his daughter behind hit home strongly; I wondered what I would say to my daughter in similar circumstances.

On the down side (and in retrospect), a couple of the sub-plots, while great in revealing character, didn't really need to be there, but, of course, they did help immensely develop the tension and roller-coaster ride.

Overall, one of the best reads for me in a long time. The suspense kept me turning the pages.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A breath of fresh air, April 26, 2002

By 

"thegreekgod" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: True Crime: The Novel (Paperback)

Any avid reader knows that every so often a novel comes along that feels like a cool breeze on a hot and stale summer day. True Crime from Andrew Klavan is such a novel. It's a wonderful feeling to know that it's still possible to inject freshness into the well worn crime/thriller/mystery genre. Not only is this novel a great and believeable story, the author's prose and word-play seem so fresh and welcoming. An intelligent author indeed, whom knows how to stir your every emotion without relying on tired and manipulative tactics. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end and am happy to say that the author did not miss a single beat. My friends, this is an intense, moving and very rewarding novel that I would highly recommend to all crime/thriller fans, or anyone who is a fan of a well written story from an author who is in complete control of his craft. Simply, a stunning work.