The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson

A good, mostly engaging read about the 1994 murder trial against O.J. Simpson. Toobin does a good job of making sure you always know who the major players are, even if they haven't been mentioned in a while. He also lays out the evidence for the reader clearly, including the problems that arose because of it, and provides analysis of the success and failures of both the prosecution and defense teams.

But Toobin goes into a LO-OT of details about the major players (including the generational history of many of them), which in some cases was useful I guess, but made it feel long, and often distracted from the central case. (I mean, why does it matter that Marcia Clark was estranged from her parents? And why include the life stories of both of her former husbands? And why do I need to know she has bulimia? None of these things had anything to do with why the prosecution lost the case, and extensive information like this was included for many of the central figures.)

If this is a subject that interests you, I'd recommend the podcast You're Wrong About, which has done a whole series on the trial and O.J.'s relationships, starting with its episode about Nicole Brown Simpson. There's surprisingly little characterization of any of the women in this book, including the victim herself, and the podcast did a great job of going further into the story to look at other points of view, not just focusing primarily on the powerful men involved, as this book mostly did.