A compulsively readable true-crime tale, with a damning argument about the relationship between the death penalty and false confessions, based on an Innocence Project case. "It's time for Virginia's governor to do something about the Norfolk Four....[This is] one of the most disturbing potential miscarriages of justice the commonwealth has seen in a long time." The Washington Post, editorial, December 1, 2006 On July 8, 1997, nineteen-year-old sailor Billy Bosko returned to his home in Norfolk, Virginia, from a naval cruise to find his wife on the floor of their bedroom, raped and stabbed to death. In this gripping story of justice gone awry, four innocent men separately confess to the heinous crime that none of them actually committed. Though the real perpetrator has since been convicted, three of the four remain in prison today, attesting to the powerful role confessionseven false onesplay in our criminal justice system, where they typically trump fact, reason, and common sense. Writer Tom Wells and law professor Richard Leo masterfully interweave a narrative covering the unfolding of the case with an exploration of topics ranging from coercive interrogation, police perjury ("testilying"), and prosecutorial politics to the role of the death penalty in criminal law. With a clemency campaign for the three wrongly imprisoned men still ongoing, this book presents an urgent call for justice and a convincing case for reform in the criminal justice system. Writer Wells and lawyer Leo team up here to produce a harrowing examination of wrongful convictions and, especially, of false confessions. Their target is a case involving the arrest of seven men for rape and murder, and the conviction and imprisonment of four of these men (and the continuing imprisonment of three of them), even after the man they identify as the true murderer has been convicted. The crime described in chilling, Fatal Vision–like detail is the sexual assault and homicide of a young sailor’s wife in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1997. The authors do an excellent job of setting up the crime and describing the panicked points of view of those arrested and convicted. The narrative then becomes a bit too hurried, long on detail but short on explication, as the authors move into more complex terrain. This study demands and rewards close reading and should inspire outrage. --Connie Fletcher "Over the past few years, I have read many stories about wrongful convictions. By their very nature, they are compelling and fascinating. The Wrong Guys might be the best one yet." —John Grisham "An eye-opening indictment of a myopic criminal-justice system." — Kirkus Reviews "A riveting account of one of the most disturbing miscarriages of justice in recent American history. Perceptive, gracefully written, and assiduously researched, The Wrong Guys rises above the standard true-crime narrative." —Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking "A compelling and appalling story." —The Champion magazine "A harrowing tale of how four innocent men were wrongly convicted by a deeply flawed legal system that failed to find the truth or dispense justice at virtually every turn. A narrative tour de force, this book may well become a true-crime classic." —Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project Tom Wells is the author of The War Within: America's Battle over Vietnam and Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg . He lives in Tijeras, New Mexico. An expert in false confessions, Richard A. Leo is the author of Police Interrogation and American Justice and is an associate professor of law at the University of San Francisco. He lives in San Francisco. Wells and Leo spent six years closely following the case and ultimately helped to secure legal representation for the Norfolk Four's clemency campaign. Both are former Guggenheim Fellows. Used Book in Good Condition