The Edge of Innocence: The Trial of Casper Bennett

By: David P. Miraldi

Narrated by: Steve Wannall

Named 2018 Book of the Year by International Rubery Book Award

The Edge of Innocence is a work of narrative nonfiction based on the 1964 murder trial of Casper Bennett, a man accused of drowning his wife in a bathtub of scalding water in Lorain, Ohio. Bennett's sensational trial pitted an aggressive, mercurial county prosecutor against the author's father, a civil trial attorney who had never before defended anyone for murder.

The book not only recreates the tension and excitement of this courtroom battle, but also highlights the uncertain edge that often divides guilt from innocence. The author was 10 years old when he answered the phone late at night when Bennett called his father from jail, seeking his legal representation.

Forty years later and long after his father's death, the author found the Bennett file in the bottom of his mother's closet. From the moment he began reading the papers, the long-forgotten drama cast a spell on him. As he uncovered more and more of the facts, the story he had known as a child disappeared, replaced by one far different.

The Edge of Innocence takes the listener through the criminal justice system and ultimately to the trial where the listener, like a juror, must sift through competing claims and conflicting evidence. Full of twists and turns and colorful characters, The Edge of Innocence is all the more entertaining because it tells a true story.

©2016 David P. Miraldi (P)2018 David P. Miraldi

Courtroom Drama

Most of this book takes place in the courtroom. Like real courtrooms, the drama is sometimes slow, and then suddenly quite intense. But, wow, the end !

Gripping crime and punishment story!

Incredibly well written first "novel ". Looking forward to his next. This is a very unusual story, wonderfully told.

Great story

Great Story and ending
Keeps you interested and hard to stop listing to . You will enjoy it.