Trell: Nothing But the Truth

by Dick Lehr

"Trell is an appealingly gutsy heroine whose belief in her father is strong enough to drag an attorney and a down-on-his-luck journalist into her orbit." -- School Library Journal

On a hot summer night in Boston in the late 1980s, a twelve-year-old African-American girl was sitting on a mailbox talking with her friends when she became the innocent victim of gang-related gunfire. An immediate manhunt was on to catch the murderer, and a young African-American man was quickly apprehended, charged, and -- wrongly -- convicted of the crime. Dick Lehr, a former reporter for the Boston Globe's famous Spotlight Team who investigated this case for the newspaper, now turns the story into a page-turning novel about the daughter of an imprisoned man who persuades a reporter and a lawyer to help her prove her father's innocence.

Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Fiction, Audiobook, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2017

About the author

Dick Lehr is a professor of journalism at Boston University. From 1985 to 2003, he was a reporter at the Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting and won numerous regional and national journalism awards. He served as the Globe's legal affairs reporter, magazine and feature writer, and as a longtime member of the newspaper's investigative reporting unit, the Spotlight Team. Before that, Lehr, who is also an attorney, was a reporter at The Hartford Courant.

Lehr is the author of The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide, a non-fiction narrative about the worst known case of police brutality in Boston, which was an Edgar Award finalist for best non-fiction. He is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil's Deal, and its sequel, Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss.

Lehr was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 1991-1992. He lives outside Boston with his wife and four children.

Reviews

[Stace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Reviewed by Stacey on www.whisperingstories.com

Fourteen-year-old Van Trell Taylor (Trell) has been brought up by her mum Shey, on one of Boston’s roughest estates. She sees her father, Romero Taylor, every Saturday at the state prison where he has been for the last twelve years after he was convicted for shooting dead a young teenage girl called Ruby Graham, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Romero had always protested his innocence and convinced a new lawyer, Nora Walsh to look at his case. Trell was convinced that her daddy was innocent too, so helped Nora file an appeal for a retrial. However, a judge dismissed the chance for a second trial. With no-where else to go with their appeal, they decided to have a journalist take a look at the case and see what he could uncover.

On the night of Ruby Graham’s murder, a reporter for the Boston Globe, Clemens Bittner, was dealing with his own grief, the death of his son. He was once a top journalist but the grief hit him hard and now he does the night-shift and avoids people. Trell needs Clemens to help her. She knows he’s the best reporter and that he will get to the truth. With enough badgering, he agrees to take a look.

Trell, with the help of Clemens, Nora and her mum realise that her father’s case isn’t straight-forward and it is going to take some digging to get to the truth, especially when it seems that someone is determined not to let the truth be outed.

Nothing But the Truth is a fictional story surrounding a real case back in 1988, the shooting of Tiffany Moore and the incarceration of Shawn Drumgold for her murder. Author Dick Lehr was a journalist for the Boston Globe when people began asking him to look at the case. He discovered evidence that the police has been rash to place the blame on Drumgold and in 2003 he walked free from prison acquitted of her murder.

You can certainly tell that the book has been written by a journalist. From the short chapters covering different aspects of the case to the way it has been worded is like a journalists report. This type of writing I enjoy.

Trell was a great character who was determined to stand up for her father and uncover the truth. She doesn’t hold back on the fact that her father wasn’t the nicest man, nor innocent of other crimes, but she knows that he didn’t kill Ruby and will stop for nothing to prove that he wasn’t the person who pulled the trigger.

Along the way you get to read about a corrupt government official whose only concern is getting to the top and the way the police were manipulated as well as witnesses threatened. The police needed to get the case wrapped up quickly as they needed to be seen taking a stand and it didn’t matter to them that they might have the wrong person.

This is a powerful book told from the point of view of a young teenage girl. It was lovely to see a young black girl from a rough estate being portrayed as a well educated and well mannered young lady with sheer determination to put right a wrong. The book isn’t all about police bashing, it’s about uncovering the truth and discovering why her father was chosen to be the one to take the blame.

This is a book not to be missed. It speaks volumes and will open your eyes to the world around you and will show what it sometimes takes to see justice done.

[fpk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this ARC from Librarything. The book's description intrigued me because the setting is near my home town, and I also remember the actual case the story was based on. Trell is a story based on a real life crime- the murder of an African American 12 yr old girl named Darlene Moore, who was sitting on a mailbox in Roxbury MA and was caught in the crossfire between rival gangs. The case itself made headlines and took years to resolve. A man named Shaun Drumgold was wrongly convicted of the crime, but was set free some 14 years later, due to some media investigation by this author, Dick Lehr, who was a former Boston Globe reporter.
This novel is very much patterned after the crime, with just a few name changes. It was written for a YA audience and in the 1st person, from the point of view of a 14 yr old African American girl named Trell, the daughter of the wrongly convicted man. The idea to narrate the story from a young girl's perspective was good, but I noticed several inconsistencies. Lehr has the girl depict people and events in terms no 14 yr old would ever use, for example, she describes a few different characters' clothing by using the words "slacks" and "blouse". People my age don't even use those terms for women's clothing. I wonder if Lehr did any research in this area- it would have been helpful if he'd hung around some urban 14 yr olds. or read some transcripts from the early 1980's to get a more realistic sense of people's language use.

The pacing of the events was a bit fast as well. Lehr had characterized himself in the story as an old curmudgeon named Clemens Bittner, a reclusive reporter who wouldn't answer phone calls and worked the graveyard shift. It took all of two pages for Trell to befriend Clemens and for him to start confiding in the 14 yr old girl. Again, unrealistic.

I'm also not sure why Lehr wrote this story in the first place. I think it would have made more sense to write about the actual case and make it a true crime story instead of a fictionalized version. Lehr even used some names from the actual crime but switched them to different characters. So why fiction? Why not just keep the details the same? Maybe some legal issues, I don't know. Lehr does say in his author's note in the end that he wanted to make it appeal to a younger audience. I don't know if it will. I do think his writing is good, and I appreciated his good grammar (!) Overall, it was an interesting read, though I think it would have been better to keep the story real. I think I will check out Lehr's book about Whitey Bulger.

[Paula Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book grabbed my attention from the cover as it was amazing and eye-catching with the newspapers. This book turned out to be based on a true event that happened in 1988 in Boston. On that fateful night in August, a 12-year-old girl was sitting on her mailbox talking to her friends when she was shot three times by stray bullets as she was caught up in a gang turf war. A 22-year-old guy was convicted of the murder, but years later it turned out that he was, in fact, innocent and just because he supposedly fit the bill and they needed a conviction - it was pinned on this guy and no-one else was investigated as a suspect. In 2003, new evidence was presented and it was determined that the guy arrested for the case was as he had said innocently after all. In Nothing But the Truth, the guy accused of killing a young girl is Trell's father. She visits him every week in prison and is determined to set him free as she knows her dad is completely innocent. Nothing But the Truth is told from the daughter's perspective of her journey to save her father once and for all. Nothing But The Truth was quite a powerful novel and comes during that time of the wrongful conviction of the Central Park 5 - another group of males who were accused of rape and sentenced to thirty years of imprisonment before they were found innocent all along.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/200...

[Clare Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this for so long - since August 2017 to be exact. I had to wait until it was published by Walker UK in 2019 and the title changed from the original Trell. I'll call the book by it's original title. The story is a fictional account of the murder of Tiffany Moore in Boston in 1988. Shawn Drumgold was wrongly convicted of her shooting death and sentenced to life in prison. Reporter Dick Lehr helped free him by investigating the case for newspaper articles.

Names of people are changed in the book and extra characters, storylines and events added, but it follows the murder of a 12 year old girl and wrongful imprisonment of titular character Trell's father. It's a heartbreaking story and so much worse because the events are true.

Trell is the central character, a black teenage girl written in first person POV by a white man. I only knew it was based on true crime events before I started reading. The more I read, the more this choice of point of view bothered me. Lehr was involved in freeing Drumgold, and in writing Trell wanted to centre the women in Drumgold's life - daughter, wife, mother and lawyer. Thus Trell Taylor is the protagonist and her father Romero Taylor is in prison.

Last year I read Hadamar - The House of Shudders where a black teenage girl was written first person POV by a white man. I disliked it for the same reasons I disliked Lehr's narrative choice. I'm white, so maybe people of colour feel differently.

The book deviated from fact in a storyline of the local druglord terrorizing Trell and journalist Clemens while they investigate the murder. It turns out Thumper the dealer murdered the little girl all those years ago and he's arrested at the end. This racheted up the tension, with chases and guns held to heads, but I felt it was unnecessary. At one stage lawyer Nora says they are looking to free Trell's father, not find the culprit. They proceed to find the culprit. Freeing Trell's dad is the point of the story and what happened in real life. I felt the dealer's storyline detracted from this important theme.

Wrongful imprisonment is a horrendous crime perpetrated by those who uphold the law and needs to end.

[Hannah]

BUT WHEN IS THE MOVIE COMING OUT

Really, this is great. Well researched and well crafted, with a fully realized Boston setting. I really love that even though it was a white guy and a black girl working together, there was no white savior trope--Trell really runs the show and drives the action, and she does an incredible amount of work while still being believably young and giving the adult man his heroic moments as appropriate. It's also always nice when an adult man and a younger girl can have a really positive relationship that has nothing creepy about it. Also, YA without even a hint of romance! And a black girl who goes to private school! And she's my age--in that she was born a few months before me in 1988, so this book takes place when I was a teen. Win win win.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ugh, I go back and forth on this. Because the idea is really great, of a teenage girl who fights all of the odds to get her wrongfully convicted father out of jail. Plus, this is based on a true story that Lehr worked on and was inspired by. So, great. I'm sure that Mr. Lehr is a strong journalist devoted to his craft and doing his part to shed light on wrongs and make things a little better.

I just think that the writing isn't very strong. Very telling versus showing, and one event after another event after another event. Overall, it's not a bad book, I can probably book talk it to kids, but it's a little dry.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is based on a true crime that occurred in Roxbury, MA where a 12 year old African American girl named Darlene Moore, was sitting on a mailbox and got caught in the crossfire of gang violence. It became a very difficult case and a man was wrongly convicted of the crime and was imprisoned for about 14 years before he was released.. His release was due in part to the investigation by the author of this book, who previously had worked as a reported for the Boston Globe. So this book obviously is closely related to the events that happened in real life, although the author does change names and some small details. The book is told from the perspective of the wrongly convicted man's teenage daughter, which I found to be quite an interesting approach. The author also writes himself into the story, using a different name which was also an interesting approach and something I have previously not read. The pacing of this story also moves along at quite a quick pace.

This of course is a very interesting story, but I think it would have worked better if the author had just written the book as non-fiction. Trying to write fiction so close to an actual case, but changing names and details just doesn't always that well. I did enjoy the fact that the book is written from Trell's perspective, the daughter of the wrongly convicted man, instead of from the reporter's perspective. Overall, I did enjoy the book; it was an interesting story and it was told from an interesting perspective, but I think it would have worked better if the author had written it as non-fiction.

Thank you to the publisher, Candlewick Press, for sending me an ARC of this book.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trell tells the story of a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston with her mother. Her father has been in prison since she was an infant, wrongly convicted of the drive-by murder of a young girl. Trell has seen her father only once a week during visiting hours. When a lawyer agrees to take on her father's appeal, Trell helps out at the law office, filing papers and learning about the legal system. As she learns more and more about her father's case, she has to confront the reasons he was convicted and find more help, in this case, a jaded reporter, to get the publicity needed to draw attention to her father's wrongful conviction.

I'm not a YA reader, but this book held my attention and I didn't feel as though the author, a former journalist with The Boston Globe's famous Spotlight team, overly simplified things. Dick Lehr is telling a complex story here, one that addresses the crack epidemic of the 1980s, police malfeasance, why communities of color mistrust the police, what it's like to be an outsider, the experience of a child who has a parent in prison, along with the central story. Despite the central story being about gangs, drug dealing and cops, the novel was refreshingly centered on women, from the lawyer doing the work to win an appeal for Trell's father, Trell's mother who is strong and does a lot to help with the case while supporting her and Trell, to Trell herself, plucky but scared. Lehr based this book on actual events that reported on so there's a depth to the characters and events that comes from reality. I liked that he allowed Trell to be an independent character while not downplaying the danger involved in investigating the case.

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

So on the one hand I found this really compelling and on the other hand the author is a white dude reporter who successfully reported on very similar RL cases (and knows much more about police wrongdoing in Boston than I ever will!), but wanted to reach young people better, so basically chose to write from the imagined pov of someone he actually met during his reporting, the Black teenage daughter of a wrongfully imprisoned man? And like...
I see what he was trying to do there and also it just feels weirdly grabby like let her tell her own story if she wants to dude. There being a self-insert nonPOV white dude reporter character for whom mentoring her pulls him out of an utter life slump does not make this less weird. YMMV. For an extra weird loop to this the audiobook narrator is amazing, one of my favorites, and she did a great job which made everything feel yet more verisimilitudinous, so I don't even know how well I think the author did or did not portray this POV character, because Bahni Turpin can convince me anybody is legit and make me love them.

[Garrett B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book while I was looking for something to read and just couldn't find anything that I found interesting. I saw this book with his simple and short name and thought it wouldn't hurt to give it a look. I was surprised to find that the little summary on the back was actually interesting and made me want to follow the story. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for mystery and crime books, however, I was going to try to get into a new genre, but this book captivated me so much that I couldn't pass it up.
The book takes place in Boston Massachusetts and follows a young teenage girl named Trell. Trell's father has been in prison since she was little, but the main problem is that he's not guilty. He was put in for life for the drive-by shooting and killing of a young girl. She ends up learning more about law as a lawyer sort of becomes her father figure and helps out at the law office. This allows her to view documents and papers related to her father's case and can see that there are major dots that aren't connecting in his arrest. However, to take it any further she needs to find more help and be careful of the thugs that start to catch on to what she's trying to do.
This book was actually very interesting at the beginning. Trell goes over memories with her dad, mostly positive ones, but also reflects on how her dad still wasn't the best of people. I liked this insight on how she felt about her dad rather than the book letting you assume how she feels just because of his "wrongdoings". I also really enjoyed the whole law aspect of the book as it allowed you to follow Trell as she slowly connected all the dots leading to unfolding the mystery. There was also a surprising amount of action and intense moments which is something that I didn't expect to see in this book, but thought that it really fit in with the setting and high stakes Trell takes.
I will say however that this book did bother me with how some of the character interactions were handled. Now, this didn't happen throughout the whole book, but sometimes during character interactions would either go on for way too long and have too little value, or something would be very quickly said and would be a major turning point in the book. This mostly just caught me off guard because at first I would kind of skim through the dialogue or be half paying attention when they would just be rambling on, and then there would be this short super important line that I would either miss or not comprehend because I was skimming through.
Again, this was only for some parts of the book and didn't take away from the enjoyability that this book has to offer. If you like crime, journalism, or law, this would be a great book to pick up because I even learned some things about the law that I hadn't known before. It taught me a lot and I barely noticed because I felt so involved in the book like I was right alongside Trell helping her on her journey. I strongly recommend this book as it was definitely an enjoyable read.

[Norah C]

I was drawn to this book because of its simple cover art. I wanted to explore a new genre and this read caught my eye during class.
The story is about Trell whos father is living a life sentence in prison for being accused of murdering a young girl. Trell would visit her father in prison all her life. Some visits were good while others she picked up on the toll prison was taking on her father. Once she was older she realized that her father was not guilty of this murder and began looking for ways to reopen the case. She went to lawyer after lawyer and al of them refused to reopen the case. It felt like a lost cause until she found Clemens Bitter. They track down witnesses and uncover a shady cop and a crime lord whoconspired to frame Taylor for the fatal shooting.
What I loved about this book was the growth you saw in Trell. How she fought for the freedom of her father and for the justice of the case.
I did not like how the story had no exciting parts and felt as though it just dragged on. But overall I felt that it was an important book to read and has certain information in it that I never knew and got to learn.

[Tisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about a girl who helps investigate a murder her dad was convicted of 13 years earlier. It had interesting thoughts about politics, prison, newspaper reporting, the court system. I loved it. It's based off a true story.

[jordan! · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was SO wonderful. By the end, I was crying. Lehr did an amazing job of adapting a real case to YA fiction and I am so happy it exists

[Evuh Smith]

Trell is a novel that hooked me from the beginning, mostly because the book is set in the 80’s, is a true story, but it still represents things that are happening today. In the story, a young girl, Van Trell or Trell for short, grows up visiting her father in prison every weekend. Ruby Graham was a little girl sitting on a mailbox one summer, and was murdered by gunfire intended for gang members. The man who was convicted of the crime, Trell’s father, is innocent. Now, the daughter and wife form a team along with a newly barred lawyer, and a news reporter who’d fallen out of the groove. The team worked to uncover the man's innocence, his daughter being the highlight. She often runs into trouble venturing off alone to uncover the conspiracy which landed her father in prison serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole; and almost gets killed doing it. Towards the end of the story, it becomes apparent what is going to happen, but the plot twist the author takes to get there keeps you on the edge of your seat.

[human]

why do i feel like i've read this before?

[Ashlyn Cordas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wasn’t too sure at first but an amazing read. Was interesting to read about injustice from the perspective of a child. Also appreciate how this is based on a real case that happened in the US.

[Richard Corbett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clean and powerfully written with a wonderful heroin of Trell, who never gives up the fight for justice, this novel which is taken from a real case,is an inspiration to keep on fighting even though there seem to be impossible odds.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Keri (BooksWithKeri) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Nothing But The Truth follows fourteen-year-old Van Trell Taylor on her quest to clear her father’s name after he was tried and imprisoned for the murder of a young girl when Trell was a baby. This is based off a true story and a true crime that Dick Lehr helped to bring to the public attention when he worked for the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.

Dick Lehr’s experience is clear in the details of the story. Both the specifics of reporting and the legality of trying to get someone’s sentence overturned is shown clearly from the beginning of the book. It was something I enjoyed quite a bit whilst reading this book.

Lehr’s writing style is easy to read and therefore quick – I read about 100 pages in one sitting when I first started reading and then finished the rest in another. Interest in seeing how the story will develop added to this ease and keeps you reading.

I enjoyed the characters in Nothing But The Truth. Whether they were main or side characters, they each have their own story, own perspectives of one event and Lehr does successfully manage to tell each one throughout the course of this book. Trell reacts to each one – they help build her understanding and perspective of her life now and of the crime itself.

Trell herself was an engaging character – she was sympathetic to read about and empathetic to those she encountered in the story. She is single-minded in her determination to free her father and I found that helped carry me through the story – I wanted her to succeed and for her to finally get her dad home. I also enjoyed her relationship with Clemons, the reporter, and how they interacted in an almost father-daughter way as they investigated and uncovered evidence for their big story. Nora, the hardass young lawyer, was an awesome character, although I do wish there was more said about her across the book.

I had some issues with Trell’s voice. She is a fourteen-year-old girl but doesn’t sound like one. Most of the time she read as any other main character in a YA novel, but there were points where she sounded so much older (when she referred to her enjoyment of running as a “work out”) and others a lot younger (when she called an informer a “tattletale”). It isn’t a major thing, it didn’t stop me from completing or being entertained by how the story unfolds but when it did occur, it did draw me from the overall narrative.

Although I am aware that this is Dick Lehr’s first young adult book and he is not a fourteen-year-old girl, so I can’t hold it against him.

The only other issue I found was how lenient Trell’s mother was about letting her run around with a reporter in places that the story says are dangerous, with gang violence and shootings and drug misuse. I feel like the story would have benefited if Trell was a little older and if she was doing this with a lot more conflict with her parents, as they don’t want anything to happen to her.

Overall though, I did enjoy Nothing But The Truth. It was difficult to put down because I wanted to know how the story ended and was a very easy read despite the topic. It is an important book that raises questions about the American legal systems view of finality and the concept of guilt, as well as showing the effect that can ripple through the lives of many people. It also raised my awareness of horrible crime, another person who was wrongly convicted and a little girl who sadly died.

It is a book about injustice from a different perspective, aimed towards a younger audience that tells an important story. I would like to read Dick Lehr’s next young adult book and see how he develops his writing in this genre!


Read my review and leave a comment here: https://bookswithkeri.wordpress.com/2...

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose this book because the summary on the back interested me and I wanted to read what happened next to Trell and her family. I usually am a fan of realistic fiction but decided to take on this mystery/thriller book and I'm glad to say it kept me wanting more and I never wanted to put the book down!

Trell, the main character, grew up with seeing her father only once a week during visiting hours. He is in jail for the murder of a little girl that he did not commit, and Trell is going to prove it! With the help of Nora Walsh and Clemens Bittner, Trell is able to find new evidence that helps prove the innocence of her father, but it wasn't easy to get. She almost gives up on her fathers case after learning about what he was involved in before she was born, mostly drug related. Fortunately, her determination kept her going and was contagious throughout the story. Her headstrong personality made me root for her and I loved how she believed that her father was not guilty no matter what people would say.

I loved the relationship between Trell and the reporter Clemens Bittner. No, not in a romantic way but in a crime fighting/detective way. They dug deep for answers and even when it seemed hopeless they didn't give up. Clemens was "retired" and was in a funk but when Trell came to him with her story of her father, his mood changed. It may seem like Clemens was helping Trell but I think Trell helped him as well. They made an amazing team and their hard work paid off in the long run.

One of the issues I had with the book is that the police were so unprofessional. Trell's father didn't get a fair trial, he didn't have a good lawyer, and was basically put in jail based on his past because Trell's father didn't have the best record to help him in a murder case.
(I can't really say anything else because I don't want to spoil the book for you)

[ImLisaAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopsis
Based on an actual event in Boston in 1988, Trell tells the story of a man wrongfully convicted for the murder of a child from the point of view of his teenage daughter. Since shortly after her birth, Van Trell Taylor (“Trell”) has only known her father in jail. For the last fourteen years he has insisted on his innocence to no avail. After legal avenues prove to be dead ends, Trell begins to hound a local, washed up investigative reporter to revisit the rush to convict her father. As Trell and the reporter begin to uncover serious flaws in the conviction, they come to realize that someone else doesn’t want the truth to come out and will do anything to stop them.

White Savior
While technically well written and well paced, the story in Trell is, in many ways, less about Trell and her family and more about the role of the reporter in the story. This isn’t terribly surprising since the Dick Lehr, the author of Trell is a former investigative journalist on the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe.

This set up raised a bit of a conundrum with me. I’m typically leery of white authors trying to write the stories of black communities; however, in the case of Trell, the book is loosely autobiographical. Lehr himself re-investigated the 1988 shooting death of teenager Tiffany Moore in Boston as a reporter at the Boston Globe. As a result of that reporting, the wrongful conviction of Shawn Drumgold was overturned in 2003 after he had served fourteen years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Rather than tell this story as a straight autobiography from the position of the white reporter, Lehr reimagined the story from the point of view of a family member of the wrongfully convicted man. This choice made the story more compelling and enabled Lehr to write it as a YA book, though of course this also meant a white man was writing the voice and story of a black teenage girl. He does, as far as I could tell, manage to avoid anything seriously problematic in his writing of Trell. She is one of the only black kids at an all-white school she goes to on scholarship, but this is a trope Angie Thomas is also guilty of in The Hate U Give, so it’s a little hard to fault Lehr for using this one—and this is also a reality for a lot of kids wanting to escape neglected schools in the inner-city.

In the course of developing the relationship with the reporter, Trell becomes interested in journalism. These bits are a touch cheesy (not over the top—this is YA after all, so the bar is a bit higher for it be over the top) and contribute to the overall “journalist will save us” vibe. Lehr does do a good job making Trell be the driving force—it isn’t the journalist uncovering clues. Rather, he’s the one showing Trell certain techniques and where to look so that she is usually the one making the discoveries, not the journalist. If this weren’t the case, I think I’d have more problems with the book. Lehr clearly made an effort so that, while the book is all about the journalism, it’s also all about Trell.

The “White Savior” aspect of the book would probably bother me more if I didn’t know Lehr himself investigated the Drumgold conviction and contributed to its being overturned. This story and the role journalists played in uncovering injustice deserve to be told and Lehr is one of the better ones to do it.

Policing Black Communities
Lehr is sensitive to the climate and the realities of the view of the police in communities where Trell lives. When a significant crime happens today in a community of color, we all shake our heads with the news pundits and question why no one called the police sooner or why seemingly no one will come forward now. Lehr addresses this head on at one point, with Trell explaining how people have seen police misconduct in person in many of these communities or known someone affected by police misconduct. When you add the penalties that come from “snitching,” there is very little reason for many people to trust the police’s ability to do the right thing or, even if they are, to protect them.

This wasn’t something I ever thought about until relatively recently. In many ways, the death of Mike Brown and my friendships with an African-American woman and a biracial Latinx woman were what started to open my eyes. Issues like those in Trell, The Hate U Give, and American Street were not ones that ever would have crossed my radar when I was the intended audience of YA books. I wish I had been able to read books like these when I was in high school, rather than having to read adulthood to really see the injustices faced by communities of color, including injustices at the hands of law enforcement.

Audience
The book is clearly a YA book and is readable for ninth grade and up—possibly a little younger for advanced readers. Language-wise, I don’t recall anything offensive. So long as a juvenile reader is prepared for the thematic elements in Trell, this book would appeal to a slightly younger audience than something like The Hate U Give or American Street, though I think it also holds the attention of older YA readers. Because of where Trell lives and how the homicide happened, there are repeated references to drug use and gangs—nothing graphic (no one actually does drugs in front of Trell) but also not subtle. Drugs and gangs aren’t glorified and one of the characters who lives in a house where a lot of the drug dealing and gang activity happens clearly wants to get out. I probably would have found this book shocking when I was in school but with everything on television, kids today are substantially less sheltered than I was twenty years ago. I don’t personally think there’s anything problematic here.

Writing
It wouldn’t be a book review on this blog without a comment on the writing. Lehr writes like a journalist, even when writing narrative fiction. This isn’t a bad thing—each word is carefully chosen, the sentences are clear, and the narrative moves forward in a coherent and deliberate pace, with a clear climax and resolution. There’s nothing flowery in Lehr’s writing but there’s also nothing distracting. This isn’t a book where I felt I wanted to re-read sentences but it’s also not a book that made me wish he’d had a better editor.

Summary
Trell isn’t a perfect book but it’s still one worth reading. I probably won’t keep my copy but I hope it gets into good hands in the Little Free Library I’m going to drop it off in. I’m glad I read it and do see myself recommending it. I think it raises important issues that are still immediately timely and it’s also an easier book to recommend on these issues if I know someone will be put off by the language in something like American Street.

Notes
Published: September 12, 2017 by Candlewick Press (@candlewickpress)
Author: Dick Lehr
Date read: September 2, 2017
Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

Thank you to Candlewick Press, Dick Lehr, and LibraryThing for sending me an advance reader copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

Enjoyed this review? Find more at http://lisaannreads.wpengine.com

[mytaakeonit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing! I highly recommend to anyone who likes mystery, fast-paced action, writing, running, or family dramas. It has it all! I especially liked the journalistic spin on the story. So unique and thought-provoking. This book brings to light a lot of injustice and corruption. So so good.

[Annalee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very well written and it told me that I should probably not be reading criminal mysteries because I always figure them out halfway through the book (it sucks). I loved the characters and the setting but once I figured out the mystery it got pretty boring. I enjoyed it and all, but it just didn't catch me the way that I want to be caught in mystery/crime novels.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story was based on a true crime from 1988, and despite its flaws, it has much to teach readers about determination, persistence, and justice. Although the book's delivery doesn't do the case justice, I'm still glad I read it since it highlights what can go wrong in our justice system. Since many other books for teens do that nowadays, perhaps I'd have enjoyed it more if it had been written a couple of years ago. The relationship between Van Trell Taylor, the book's protagonist, and Clemens, the broken down reporter who initially resists getting involved in any investigative reporting and then gives it his all, somehow finding redemption in helping Trell's father be vindicated, might be unlikely and his allowing her to be such a part of the investigation odd, but still, it functions well in giving readers their perspectives on what happened, sometimes even allowing glimpses of Trell wondering where the truth of her father's story lies. Romero Taylor, Trell's father, has been incarcerated for most of her life, convicted of shooting a young girl who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she and her mother see him only on the weekend visits they take upstate from Boston's Roxbury neighborhood where they live. As Trell turns fourteen, her father's case comes to the attention of attorney Nora Walsh, who reads the transcripts of the case, and decides that Romero is not guilty as he has long maintained and that justice has been miscarried. Trell starts sifting through the evidence and transcripts too, and reaches out to Clemens who had once gained fame for his reporting of another wrongful justice case. I was fascinated by all the interviews and research Trell and Clemens did on her father's behalf, but I also knew pretty early on where to lay the blame for the murder. Although I liked Paul Parish, Trell's friend and the nephew of Thumper Parish, who ruled the nearby streets, I wasn't sure that I bought how unaware and untouched he seemed to be of all the bad stuff going on around him. I felt conflicted about Clemens' former cop friend, Richie Boyle, whose waffling from one side to the other either represented someone whose life experiences had hardened him or whose values had completely changed, perhaps mired in the murkiness that can exist in a life spent trying to sort out the good guys from the bad ones. I'd have liked to know more about him. Sometimes the dialogue doesn't ring as true as it might, and the references to Trell's school, the Weld, are too vague to allow much insight into how attending the place was benefiting her. Still, I was pleased to see at least one example of how justice can prevail even if it has to be aided by outside sources such as journalists like Clemens. Yes, this is an example of what great investigative reporting can accomplish. As I closed the book, I wondered how many other cases like this are out there where a convenient scapegoat takes the blame for a crime someone who is well connected actually did.

[Michaela Aisling · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I was nervous because in my experience police did more wrong than right.”

For all intents and purposes, Trell is just your average teen. Except, she's not. Trell is a 14 year old black girl attending a fancy school, stuck in a sea of over privileged white students, her teachers so utterly out of touch, their heads clearly filled with stereotypes and prejudice. Trell is the daughter of Romero Taylor, the man convicted just 13 years prior for the shooting, and subsequent killing, of a young girl. Already, this is an exceptionally important story. It's a story that focuses on issues that we still see today; the unjust conviction and imprisonment of a young, black man, falsely accused – by white police officers, no less – of a crime he didn't commit. Because that's the point of this story; Romero Taylor is innocent, and Trell is adamant she's going to prove it. And, the kicker here? This story is based upon true events.
Dick Lehr wrote this story, his first attempt at a YA novel, based on a case that he worked on. You see, Lehr is an ex-reporter turned novelist, having previously worked for The Boston Globe. The very same Boston Globe as is featured in this story. With a few details askew – ie names, numbers, and the like – Lehr took to recreating the case of a man, falsely accused, and his family's attempts – with the help of both a lawyer and reporter willing to expose the truth within the media – to clear his name. Now, I don't think this is a bad thing, I think it's an extremely intriguing way to approach such a story. In fact, we're living in a particularly stark social (and political) climate in which more and more black people are suffering at the hands of the police; staggering numbers of black people are being shot and killed, attacked on the streets, or having their names besmirched by the very people who are sworn in to protect them, to protect us all. With YA books like Dear Martin by Nic Stone, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, American Street by Ibi Zoboi and other such stories, we've also had an increase in writers coming forward to create stories that shine a light on the injustice within not only a large portion of the police force (specifically within the States, but no doubt an issue prevalent worldwide), but in countless positions of power. This is something that is completely necessary within the stories we pick up, as well as the ones portrayed across screen, especially when you take into consideration just how raw and honest and real these scenarios, mirroring the acts and horrors that the black community – as well, of course, as other such minorities – face in real life. What Lehr is doing here is incredibly important, drawing attention to a real case – picking up this book certainly inspired me to look into the original case – while telling it not from his own perspective, as a privileged white man, but from that of a young, black girl.

You can read my full review here! This is definitely more of a 3.5 star rating than it is a 3 star, if only goodreads would give us half stars.

[American Mensa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dick Lehr’s Trell is an engrossing novel that follows one girl’s journey to prove her father’s innocence. Based on a true story of a wrongful murder conviction, the novel engages and educates its reader in the flaws of the legal system and the importance of pursuing justice through journalism. Van Trell Taylor is a wiry fourteen year old girl who has visited her father, Romero Taylor, in prison every Saturday since she was one. Every week she ends her visit with a question, “Daddy, when you comin’ home?” but now, she is determined to take justice into her own hands. Her unfailing persistence leads her to uncover buried truths and to face the complicated reality of her father’s imprisonment. Trell teams up with the cranky reporter Clemens Bitter, the fiery lawyer Nora Walsh, and her mother, Shey Taylor, in order to spread the truth about her father’s innocence.

Lehr’s characters are idiosyncratic and charming in their quirks. Trell in paticular is a well-developed character, and her grit compels the reader to empathize with her throughout the book. In addition, another strength of this book lies in Lehr’s detailed descriptions of events and physical places. He writes with such meticulous care and intent, consequently making the story seem all the more real. Lear pulls some of the details of the case in the book from the actual case he investigated into as a reporter, so of course his writing would appear believable, but Lehr’s ability to weave these details into a novel form is laudable. Not only does Lehr’s book seem grounded in reality but it is also engaging. Besides the very end of the book, which I found to be slightly hasty, the pace of the book keeps its readers absorbed without rushing through the larger importance of the story.

However, at times, Lehr’s writing becomes so focused on exactly describing events and setting that it comes off as forced and awkward. This book is written from Trell’s perspective, but at times, Lehr’s voice seems imitative rather than real. Some of this deficiency comes from romantic undertones in the relationship between Trell and a boy named Paul, which I considered to be unnecessary and stilted.

Ultimately, this book explores important ideas regarding the weaknesses in the judicial system and the police, but it also promotes a solution to these flaws: journalism and curious people who never stop searching for the truth. These ideas, while they can be expressed in nonfiction works, are more easily spread to a younger audience in a novel form. Due to mature material, I would recommend this book to those 13 years and older, but I strongly recommend this book since it introduces and promotes important ideas that are not usually touched on by YA books.
Lauren A., 17, Lone Star Mensa

[grieshaber.reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trell was a newborn when her father was falsely accused of and imprisoned for one of Boston’s most notorious murders - that of a fourteen-year-old girl named Ruby Graham. Now Trell is the same age as Ruby was when she died. She and Ma visit Daddy every week. At this latest visit, Daddy (Romero Taylor) tells them that a friend of his has a new, young lawyer who’s a fighter. He thinks if he can get her interested in his case, she might be the one who can get him a new trial and get him out of jail. Trell becomes obsessed with this idea. The lawyer, Nora Walsh, after reading all of the paperwork on Romero’s case, agrees that some serious injustice was done in his case and she takes him on. Trell becomes an intern for Nora, learning all she can and helping in whatever way she can. When Nora doesn’t have any luck getting a judge to reopen the case, she decides the press needs to get involved. Nora is convinced they need a notorious Boston Globe reporter, Clemens Bittner, to investigate and report on the injustices committed in Romero’s case. After Trell’s long process of convincing Bittner to take on the task, the two of them team up to investigate every angle of the case in a desperate attempt to free Romero and reunite Trell’s family.

I really liked the idea of fourteen-year-old Trell playing such a big role in the quest to free her father (even if it wasn’t always realistic). The telling felt a little too innocent to me (we’re talking about an extremely dangerous neighborhood and the people involved in the injustice are BAD dudes) which makes me think this book is more suited to middle school. It’s a quick read, though, and a nice portrayal in the role journalism can play in getting justice. Author, Dick Lehr, based this story on the true story of Shawn Drumgold who was wrongly convicted of the killing of twelve-year-old, Tiffany Moore. Lehr was the Boston Globe reporter who reinvestigated Drumgold's conviction.

[Brindy Dean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Van Trell Taylor has spent fourteen years of her life visiting her father in prison who has been convicted of the first-degree murder of a thirteen-year-old girl, Ruby Graham. Everyone has been resting easy for fourteen years, believing that justice has been served in the tragic death of this young girl who appeared caught in between a gang war. However, Trell's father claims innocence and Trell believes him. Taking matters into her own hands with the help of her mother, an avid lawyer, and a washed-up, but determined reporter, Trell begins searching for the truth and comes to find herself caught up in a dangerous game. Will Trell be able to prove her father's innocence? Based off of a true story, Lehr, former reporter for the Globe which worked on the real case, writes a compelling story from the viewpoint of a young girl simply searching for a way to bring her father home.

After reading the author's note in the back and seeing how closely Dick Lehr stayed to the original story, I was impressed. I liked how this story pointed out how justice is not always justified until absolutely proven true. However, I felt that this story wasn't the best in the way that it was told. The main character, Trell, was based off of the real suspect's daughter, who was the same age, but the voice didn't feel as one of a young adult. I could tell that Lehr's voice, used to writing for adults, leaked into sounding like an adult at times, but then also, sounding like a girl much younger than that of a fourteen-year-old. The ending seemed not very believable even though it was a happy ending. Maybe it was just in the way the story was told, but I didn't feel myself convinced the entire time that the characters were truly thought out enough and the actions those of what the characters would actually do.

Content Warnings:
-profanity
-references to drugs and gangs

[Lynsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this proof copy for an open and honest review.

Dick Lehr is a former reporter for the Boston Globe who, working as part of the Spotlight team, helped to crack a real life case that inspired this debut YA novel. In the summer of 1988, a 12-year-old girl, named Darlene Tiffany Moore, was killed by a stray bullet as she sat atop a mailbox talking to friends. A man named Shawn Drumgold was convicted and jailed for her murder, serving 14 years in a prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Nothing But The Truth tells his story.

The plot centers around our protagonist, Trell, who enlists the help of a news reporter to uncover the truth that she has always known: her father’s innocence. Together they examine old witness statements and begin to notice pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. As the pair work to build a case, it becomes clear that not everyone is on their side – there are secrets that need to remain hidden, whatever the cost.

Being a former reporter, I felt that Lehr’s writing style was quite factual and stilted. I knew that Trell’s father was innocent. I knew he would probably be set free. So the in between, for me, was rather irrelevant. I found myself skim reading sections to get to the ‘happy ending’, not really caring if I found out the whos and whys.

Although I didn’t love this book, finding out that the story is based on real events has made me appreciate it that little bit more. Dick Lehr has succeeded in highlighting unforgivable flaws in the American legal system that ultimately ruin lives. In a similar vein to ‘The Hate You Give’, Lehr has put the spotlight on a corrupt police force who we, as a society, have lost all trust in. Find a witness; close the case. Any witness will do, even if it means bending the truth.

[Jessica Macaulay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping and realistic YA? Check. Compelling and diverse characters? Check. A book that's easy to sink your teeth into? Check, check, check! Based on the real events that led to the overturning on Shawn Drumgold's 1988 conviction for the murder of a 12 year old girl. Trell is a gripping tale that highlights the power of a daughter's love, and value of conviction in legal counsel, and the ability of good journalism to expose the wrongs of a justice system prone to prejudice and corruption.

While this story is very much about Trell and her quest to gain her father's freedom, it about so much more! We see the redemption of Clemens as he comes to grips with the loss of his own son, the evolution of Nora as she transforms from a recent graduate to a criminal defence lawyer, and the reformation of Detective Boyle as he realizes that complacence can be the greatest crime of all. All in all, Lehr's narrative highlights how politics and a flawed justice system can come together to create the perfect storm, breeds contempt and indignation, and contributes to redlining. I genuinely feel that Trell will quickly find a place in middle and high school curriculums as it touches on so many heavy hitting issues, and should seriously be considered for YA book clubs as there is much discuss.

Would I recommend this book? Oh hell yes! Trell is gripping, well written, and provocative. It's the kind of book where you can't help but rooting for Trell while simultaneously becoming enraged with the failings of a system that is supposed to uphold justice. Filled with courage, determination, and enough twists to inspire those OMG moments that keep pages turning.