Edward Humes's "Burned," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t by Edward Humes.

The entry begins:

There are two leading roles if Burned were to be made into a movie: The character of Raquel Cohen, attorney at the California Innocence Project, and her client, Jo Ann Parks, who has been in prison for more than half her lifetime, convicted of killing her three children by setting fire to their home and trapping them inside. Cohen is trying to prove Parks innocent and, in the process, expose the failings of forensic science used in thousands of other cases.

My choice to play the brilliant, quirky, cynical yet idealistic Cohen is either Jessica Biel, who was mesmerizing in The Sinner, or Homeland star Claire Danes, who can basically do anything. It’s a toss-up: Either would be fantastic.

For her chameleon-like ability to become anyone, and to blur into ambiguity the line between innocence and guilt, I would want...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Edward Humes's website.

The Page 99 Test: Force of Nature.

The Page 99 Test: Garbology.

My Book, The Movie: Burned.

--Marshal Zeringue