ThingsThat Makes You Go “Hmmm”
Review by Kim Cantrell
In 1985, Steve Avery was on a fast track to prison. His latest criminal endeavor, for which he was awaiting trial, involved the attempted abduction of a deputy sheriff’s wife.
Avery’s wife, Lori, lay awake at night, wondering how she would care for the couple’s children, including the couple’s newborn twin boys, when – not if – Steve was locked up.
“When” came sooner than she expected.
Penny Beerntsen set out for an afternoon jog along the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. It would be a jog that would change her life forever.
In more ways than she could have imagined.
Following an attack by a sadistic, sexual psycho, Penny was immediately thrust into the arms of Lady Justice.
What ensued was a terrifying lesson in a judicial system where right is wrong and wrong is right.
For 18 years, Penny would believe that her attacker was behind bars and Steve Avery would proclaim his innocence.
However, it would take a change in the District Attorney’s staff and the advent of DNA science for the true criminal to be identified.
Yet…a few short years after Avery is exonerated, when Teresa Halbach disappears and the last person to see her was Steve Avery, many are left wondering whether justice was really denied in the Beernsten case or simply delayed the inevitable for Steve Avery.
In his new book Unreasonable Inferences, author Michael Griesbach tells the story of how he came on board with the Manitowoc County DA’s office at almost the same time the Wisconsin Innocence Project was tackling Steve Avery’s case.
Typically when an attorney writes a book, most readers complain about their use of too many Latin and fifty-cent-word phrases.
Not so with Griesbach. Simplistic without dumbing-down, Griesbach tells an electrifying story about how justice isn’t just blind but downright narrow minded.
I cannot stress to my fellow readers how refreshing it was to see a prosecutor so openly admit the mistakes made by his predecessors and how he and his colleagues worked hard to right a wrong. This isn’t something you’ll find in your everyday true crime.
But readers will be left asking, “Was it all to no avail?” While Griesbach obviously has an opinion, through a thought-provoking epilogue he leaves us to decide for ourselves.
Well-written, fast paced, and an avant-garde storyline, Unreasonable Inferences is destined to be one of 2010′s top true crime books.
To learn more author Michael Griesbach and to order Unreasonable Inferences, visit www.unresonableinferences.com. And stay updated with the Unreasonable Inferences on Facebook.
